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Let’s Not Put the Garden to Bed

When I began gardening, more years ago than I want to admit, I learned quite a bit about putting the garden to bed. I was taught now’s the time to cut back the perennials, pull the annuals, till the soil, and add fresh mulch or leaf mold. The magazines and television shows featured gardeners dressed in fresh flannel shirts, oilskin jackets, and boots. The soil was dark and rich, and the fall leaves fell about them like nature’s confetti. Did all these gardeners reside in Vermont?

Where I’ve been gardening much of my life is far different. In Cincinnati, fall can be a frosty start to the morning with hands thrust deep inside pockets followed by a warm afternoon and sweatshirts tossed to the side and arms exposed to the sun. Where are those Vermont fall days I was promised in my early garden years?

As I walk about the gardens, I note the generous variety of plants we still have in bloom. Most striking today is the low growing sedum in full bloom attracting countless honeybees, the pincushion with skippers darting about, and the delicate white flowers of the numerous asters that have volunteered to make this garden their home. Mixed in with the unexpected pops of color are seedheads with their spiky texture commingling with the soft swaying grasses: both promises of winter food and shelter for our native insects and birds. The longer I plant for nature, the more thankful I am that the way I garden now does not have a put the garden to bed task. Instead, this garden promises blooms through November, if the weather cooperates, followed by winter interest from the plants left standing until spring. This garden isn’t packed away and tidied up, for when we plant with nature there’s no beginning or end to the garden, just a different time in the garden.

Although I still fancy the idea of a new flannel shirt and oilskin jacket.

 

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