The Scoop

Environmental Action Committee

November

2024 Newsletter

The garden’s almost finished for the year. Except for the final clean-up, plants are going to sleep, interconnected roots are hugging each other below ground, earthworms are burrowing deep and the landscape is heaving a sigh. I love this time of year simply because of the time for reflection. 

I will sit awhile in the sun. We’ve had a rough couple of months, but the plants are still hanging on. And we’ve had a lovely gift of warmer-than-usual fall days.

So, I love to mull over what happened in the garden this year. The fall greens, broccoli and leeks are still standing strong, but gone are the luscious fruits of high summer. I ate my last fresh tomato, and now it’s the appropriate time to bring out the canned tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.

This is a good time to do a basic inventory of what needs to be cleaned up before winter and what can be left until next spring. If dead plants standing bother you, then cut them down. But try the chop and drop method in which you do three chops with hedge shears and let the stems fall. They provide organic matter to feed the plants next year.

The healthiest gardens and landscapes are those that mimic nature. Nature doesn’t remove leaves or dying foliage. The plants will simply grow through the plant matter the following spring and will be healthier for it. We have an overwhelming amount of tree debris because of the storm, but for the most part, nature will take care of it. Just slowly.

Most importantly, do what you feel needs doing in your own garden. Our wonderful landscape crew has put many parts of our campus landscape to bed, and we’ll be letting nature take over from here. We’ll remove the leaves from hard surfaces, but the rest will be blown into beds to make mulch. The ornamental grasses will be left standing to provide winter interest and will be cut back in early spring.

The beds may look a bit messy as we chopped and dropped perennials and annuals, but I invite you to come take a look in the spring as plants emerge through their cozy blanket. Nature isn’t tidy. Nature recycles beautifully and once we take her lead, we will be able to finally relax. And, we’ll be ecstatic when those hostas pop through last year’s leaves. Last year’s leaves will be the carpet that feeds next year’s plants. The garden and landscape will progress through the regular sequence even if we don’t intervene. It may not be as tidy, but it will progress. 

This year, let’s sit back and enjoy the show, make every effort to relax, not get insanely nuts over tasks not done, and spend more time simply being in the garden.

-Kate Jerome