Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The weather is still unseasonably warm but not blazing hot and we are all ready to catch up on outdoor chores. How tempting to give the garden a haircut – all those spent flower heads and stems that are no longer a blaze of color but a drab brown don’t seem very attractive.
But to insects and birds, they may be a place for food or shelter as winter and cooler temperatures are coming. Seed heads are packed with protein and a welcome meal for our feathered friends. Some of our beneficial solitary pollinators may find winter shelter in stems of semi-woody herbaceous perennials if we leave them standing. A beneficial chore that is overdue in my garden is putting down more mulch to protect roots from cold, and to deny sunlight to those winter weeds that have already started to germinate
