Thanks to a very wet late spring/early summer and still-developing root competition, my second year patio garden is huge and floppy. My husband asked yesterday if I was planning on tidying this fall. I explained that you ordinarily wouldn’t, for critters using the garden, but because it is SO UGLY I was considering it, especially the Monarda fistulosa.
This morning I came out to see a pair of goldfinches mowing down on said Monarda. Guess it stays ugly…
by toxicodendron_gyp
8 Comments
Yep, goldfinches are also visiting Monarda fistulosa seed heads in our park pollinator gardens. (Plus coneflowers, plus anise hyssop.)
It’s especially exciting because we don’t see goldfinches so often in the city, but I am certain at least one pair is nesting in my neighborhood right now (goldfinches nest in the summer because, very unusually for songbirds, they feed their babies seeds instead of insects.)
Leave those seed heads standing!
https://preview.redd.it/37zaxsl8oghd1.jpeg?width=5184&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd0abce44fd6df878827a5020854c96cbea1cd85
I also had a very wet spring summer and all my plants are showing off this year. I won’t be tidying up this year though. I have several goldfinches going to town eating seeds. I also have had juncos and sparrows eating the seeds in late fall which will be another reason why I won’t clean up.
Also, it has been a scary year here for pollinators…..there have been so few and less diversity in years past. I’m leaving all the leaves and plants for them to winter in.
Goldies are so STINKIN CUTE
The goldfinches love my cosmos, and what amazes me is they can sit on the stems and they don’t bob down.
My husband has been really pushing me to mow mine, too. I’m not going to. I’m very concerned about pollinators also. My Greg’s mist is getting very few visitors. We had a wet summer also. I get it. To some, it’s an eyesore. To me, it’s an ecosystem. I’m slowly converting my gen z neighbors! It gives me hope.
I only tidy things that require it (non-natives) and they are few. A wind storm knocked my flowers sideways,but I am keeping them in the yard as I see hummingbirds and goldfinch still cozying up to them!
No case, it’s that standards.
If you are cleaning up a native garden of seed heads and stalks, you’re missing the whole point!
Chop it every 3 years or so to kinda simulate fire…if you can burn though, I wish I could burn haha. I should ask
I don’t clean up until I’m getting ready for spring, so usually February around here. I want the birds and bugs and whatever else to have shelter in the winter! Besides, nothing is going to look “cleaned up” in the winter.