Spring Garden Cleanup: How to support pollinators and wildlife by doing LESS!
- megckelley03
- Apr 22
- 6 min read
Do you want to see more fireflies? Help protect native bees? Learn how a less is more approach can help, and what spring cleanup should look like for a pollinator friendly garden!
When we bought our first home, I began converting my gardens to focus more heavily on food plants and native plants, and included my girls every step of the way. I wanted my kids to know where their food came from, how it grows, and what it tastes like when picked fresh from the plant. Most importantly, I wanted them to see the difference gardening with native plants can make. To show them how to care for our environment and leave our space better than we found it.
We don’t kill bugs at my house. We spend a great deal of time outdoors each day. Both the kids attending my daycare and my own kids, explore every facet of our space. While outdoors, I prioritize teaching the kids how crucial all bugs are to our lives. The jobs they do, the things they eat, what eats them, and how it all fits into the big picture. Bugs are crucial to our survival as an integral part of our ecosystem and we need to change our thinking from, “Ick! A bug!” to “Ooo, a helper!”
If you come to my house in summer, and stand next to the 3 foot tall Short Toothed Mountain Mint, you will see an absolute bee party! Not only does the plant smell amazing, it supports dozens of bees, hoverflys and wasps all coexisting harmoniously. So many people fear bees, even think that they are dangerous, but all of these bees visiting the mountain mint are docile, many don’t even have stingers! These plants grow in a high traffic area, and are passed by kids and adults all day long. Despite this, the bees are all super calm, zipping along from flower to flower, a wide range of colors from huge great black wasps with their green iridescence to great golden wasps to tiny green hoverflys and itty bitty bees.
My small ⅓ acre property is home to hundreds of native plants, fruit trees, berry bushes, and even a hedge of hazelnuts! Each of my children has a garden bed of their own that they have 100% control over. Despite varying levels of interest and participation, their gardens are as unique as they are, and all of them are proud of their spaces. I very much enjoy having them spend time with me working in the gardens. They also love to help me with our native plant business, helping me restock our farmstand, as well as helping me run our booth at farmers markets.
Every year our lawn gets smaller as our gardens get larger. As more forests, meadows and wild areas are cleared for development, there are less areas for insects, pollinators and wildlife. I teach my children that it is our responsibility as homeowners to help make up the difference, to protect wildlife, to provide food, water, and shelter, to help avoid a fundamental breakdown in the ecosystem.
Right now, (the week of April 20, 2025), we have JUST begun the work of garden cleanup for spring. We waited until temperatures are reliably in the 50s and above for the next 10 days, which should put us in the clear to clean up. Why? Because many insects use dead stems from last year’s flowers to lay their eggs in, and last fall’s leaves are winter habitat as well. Once temps are above 50, these insects begin to emerge and get busy with their spring duties, and you can safely begin spring cleanup without accidentally destroying the next generation of beneficial pollinators and insects. I follow the Xerces Society recommendation for pruning old flower stems- here is how it works! Late April or early May, whenever the weather is in that above 50s sweet spot for over a week, I start to prune back my old flowerheads. I dont cut down to the ground, however, I only cut back to 8-12”. Whatever height will be disguised by this year’s new growth. In the fall, all of these old stems will be used by bees and other insects to lay their eggs for the next generation. Those eggs will hang out all winter in the stems and our friends will emerge next spring! In fall, I will leave all the old stems from this season, for birds to forage seeds from all winter long. Free bird food, win! Once next spring rolls around, I will prune two things! First, I will prune all of the used up “nursery” stems from last season, if there are any left. Second, I will prune down the spent flowerheads to 8-12” for a new “nursery” for our native insects to use. And the cycle continues!
At my house, we do 2 things with our leaves. We pile them in gardens as a winter blanket, and we rake the yard and corral those in a ring of wire fencing to compost down into excellent “leaf mold” (its not actually mold, I promise! Just crumbly broken down leaf bits!) which is fantastic to add to gardens in spring! Now that it’s spring cleanup time, we are gathering up all the leaves that may have been blown out of flower beds over winter and returning them to the gardens to break down in place. Plants will grow right up through them! My only caveat is, if your leaves ted to form mats, maybe opt for the corral method so any more delicate plants dont get smothered, and then spread the crumbly leaf mold from your corrals as a dressing of compost in springtime.
Consider making the change to leaving your leaves next fall instead of mulching or bagging them, it can make a massive difference! Dozens of insects, butterflies and small animals depend on leaves for winter habitat. The wooly bear caterpillar, the Luna Moth, fireflies, frogs, toads, salamanders, turtles, all of these and more use leaves to protect their eggs, hide their chrysalis, or as a place to keep warm over winter until spring warmth returns. If we mulch our leaves, we accidentally chop up and destroy these eggs and chrysalises, and we destroy the habitat wildlife needs over winter. You can still “tidy up” a little, just pile your leaves into garden beds for winter, or rake and corral them into a back corner of your yard. They will break down and provide excellent compost for your garden, while still providing habitat in the meantime.Think about how many fireflies you saw in your yard as a child, and how few you see now. We can absolutely make a difference in helping to restore their population just by leaving our leaves!
Another way to help support insects and pollinators is to rethink your lawn. The concept of a lawn is unnatural, high maintenance, expensive, and wasteful, never mind that the turf grasses used are typically not even native to the US, so they “need” watering, fertilizing and pesticides to just keep them alive and looking halfway decent. Lawn fertilizers are a major source of water pollution due to runoff, and the EPA named it one of THE most costly and challenging environmental problems. Pesticides are also unneccessary, and are responsible for killing off the food sources for birds, amphibians, and small mammals.
We opted to seed our lawn with a low-growing wildflower and clover seed mix. This provides a healthier, more drought resistant “lawn” that also supports pollinators. Only mowing every 2-3 weeks, and mowing at a high setting, about 3-4” tall, helps shade the ground, retain moisture, and eliminating all watering of our lawn entirely. We need to ditch the antiquated and harmful idea that turf lawns are the only acceptable option. They were created by British aristocracy as a symbol of wealth due to the amount of money and number of caretakers required to maintain it. Meanwhile we as American homeowners doom ourselves to spending our weekends mowing, fertilizing and watering our lawns, when switching to native plants eliminates not only the work but the environmental damage. Now is the perfect time to throw down seed for a more diverse lawn! You can remove whats already there and start with bare soil or just throw new seed on top of your existing lawn and let it intermingle and do it’s thing! If you have sandy soil, clover is great as it will add nitrogen to the soil and help build soil health. If you have compacted or clay soil, add some daikon radish to your seed mix! It sounds silly, but hear me out! Daikon radish grows long taproots like a carrot, yet the green can be mowed regularly without harming the root growing underground. Then, later in summer, pull the radish to eat, and the open spaces left behind will help aerate and loosen up your soil! And you get food at the same time! Neato, lawn food rocks!
Remember, without pollinators we would not have food! Almost 35% of our food crops are insect or animal pollinated, and by making small changes we can make a big impact. Support those pollinators!
What other kinds of posts would you like to see? I am always looking for suggestions!
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