HUD Articles

As the weather is getting warmer, many new homeowners that purchased over the winter months are getting their first look at the gardens and flower beds around their new home.  Feeling excited and ready to jump into cleaning them out and making them their own.

Knowing when to start and how to spring clean garden areas is important for the health of your local ecosystem. This is because many pollinators overwinter in the dead material you may want to remove. By waiting to do yard and garden cleanup, and by doing this chore right, you will be saving many bees and butterflies.

There is a very good reason to wait on cleaning your garden – pollinators. Many pollinators, like bees and butterflies, over winter in dead plant material. They ride out the cold weather there and emerge in spring to do their good work.

Regardless of when you begin, knowing how to spring clean garden material in a way that protects your pollinators will allow you to save even more of them. When clearing out old stems, look for bee activity such as ends plugged with mud or plant material. Leave those in place for nesting bees. If you pick out old stems that may have bees nesting, move them to a corner of the garden for a few extra weeks so that bees can emerge. You can leave them on the ground or tie them in bundles to hang from trees or fences.

Watch out for chrysalises and cocoons when pruning back shrubs and other woody material. If a branch hosts one of these, leave it in place for now. Butterflies, ladybugs, assassin bugs, and other beneficial insects nest in piles of leaf matter. Move leaf piles to a corner of the garden and leave undisturbed for a while.  Don’t smother the soil in beds with mulch until it is generally warm to avoid blocking in-ground nesting bees and other insects.

These few steps can help protect the local pollinators in your area. 

Evduza Ramaj

Inside Realty