Mother Nature is not the best housekeeper. Seed pods hang off limbs like Christmas tree bulbs. Hollow plant stems poke out like Einstein’s hair. But untidy housekeeping does not equate to poor planning.
Mother Nature is responsible for thousands of beings that all survive through interwoven existence. Starting with birds, natural winter planning is key to their survival. A carpet of leaves provides habitat for insects, spiders, worms, larvae, and moth pupae, all of which are a hearty winter meal. Leaf litter is a great, and free, habitat for toads, lizards, snails, skinks, and bugs. A deep mattress of leaves helps regulate ground temperatures, keeps weeds down, and protects soil from drying out. By leaving the leaves, you become the high school lunch lady with the monster cinnamon rolls. No one goes hungry.
Instead of paying someone to remove fallen or trimmed brush or branches, just leave them for the winter. Who might move into your rustic motel? Birds like sparrows and chickadees, rabbits, snakes, insects, and rodents. Some may be unwanted guests, but all fit into Mother Nature’s food web. The brush pile will settle and break down in the coming months, adding nutrients to the soil. Your brush pile is the perfect home for your naked Christmas tree. No hauling it to your sister’s goats.
As organic materials provided by Mother Nature break down, they return nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to the soil, adding food for microorganisms and soil fauna. This starting level of soil fauna creates the foundation for lunch lady cinnamon rolls for everyone up the chain.
Keep the remains of your spring garden. That five-foot-by-four-foot huge tomato vine that is still producing those thumbnail-sized yellow tomatoes can just stay put. Prolific miniature yellow tomatoes will be a hunger solving hit to birds and others, along with providing shelter with those large tomato leaves. That vine will be easy to break down in March when the plant has dried out. The birds and their buddies will pick the fruit and enjoy the safety of the dense vines throughout the winter.
No rush on trimming back those perennials with seeds. Grasses, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, zinnias, and other flower seeds contribute to the diet of winter hold-overs. The seeds might be tiny but delicious when it is only 30 degrees outside. You won’t have to dead head and seed heads are natural feeders. Plus, those hollowed-out stems are a perfect place for hibernating insects to overwinter.
You might be asking yourself, “Why do I want to be Mother Nature’s lunch lady?” The Cornell Lab of Ornithology advises that there has been a dramatic decline in North American bird populations since 1970. Nearly three billion birds, about one out of every four, are gone. Insect populations are also in trouble.
It is clear we all own a piece of the puzzle. Even land in town can be a wildlife preserve with your family playing an important part in managing our future. Ditch the pesticides and the cleanup. Watch your home become a haven to many kinds of Mother Nature’s children. Teach your kids to be a “lunch lady” with pride and conviction.
Julie Silva is a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener of Tuolumne County.
