When Should Spring Garden Clean Ups Begin
We get many false starts to spring that leave residents and gardeners itching to get into the garden after a long winter. Starting clean ups too soon can have harmful effects on the space you are attempting to nurture. It is possible to love and overcare for your garden too much!
When should you begin cleaning up the garden in Southern Ontario?
Our species (humans) has a tendency to helicopter parent and over meddle in the garden, and I’m sure we’ve met another parent or caregiver that we felt did the same with their family members as well. We are full of enthusiasm and good intentions and are coming from a place of love, but like parenting we need to approach the garden with conscious, educated choices and allow it to have some independence.
Why cleaning up the garden too early is harmful:
Frost and Snow.
We go through many false starts to spring. The days get warm and sunny, we bask, the bees bask, flowers start to appear and it looks like it’s go time! And then we are blasted with more snow or frost. We can retreat back inside our homes and turn the furnace back on, but if we’ve stripped back mulch (leaf droppings, wood chips etc) and tidied everything up, we have removed the plants ‘blanket’.
Soil Compaction.
Our winters are wet. Spring is a muddy, mucky season; the best season for muddy puddles! If you’ve hiked a trail in spring while muddy and again once it’s dried out, you may have noticed this first hand. The areas that people have walked in the mud turn to concrete like soil once it dries out. This is because we have compacted the soil, and due to much of Southern Ontario’s clay like soil, this destroys the soil structure making it very hard for seeds, plants and pollinators to survive and thrive. The occurs as moisture lubricates the soil particles allowing them to slip into closer proximity when exposed to compaction, reducing the space between particles. This leads to a reduction of water filtration and absorption moving forward and turns your soil into “rock”.
Pollinators.
Many of our native bees do not live in hives but rather they burrow in the ground. Caterpillars, moths and a host of other pollinators are dormant and camouflaged within leaf droppings, hollow plant stems or on plant material. When we remove plant material early, we are often binning or bagging up the butterflies we were hoping to draw in. We are also removing the remnants of food sources for many birds (seed heads, bugs etc) who still have a few challenging weeks until spring truly arrives.
When should we clean up the garden in Southern Ontario?
Typically the end of April is a good time to clean up Toronto gardens but this varies each year.
Microclimates play a role in this choice (it really dictates nearly all garden decisions!) and some areas of your property may be OK to clean up sooner.
What to look for before performing a spring garden clean up:
Soil has dried
If you grab a handful and squeeze, it should have moisture but won’t drip through your fingers. When the soil is still frozen, water will not act the same as when the ground has fully thawed and we can often see this in pooling water.Temperatures are consistently above 10C for at least a week and nights are not regularly dipping into freezing temperatures.
This consistency in warmer temperatures signals to plants and pollinators that it is “go time”. It will give them enough time to come out of dormancy before you begin to remove plant material.Forsythia is in bloom.
Those new to gardening often want a distinct reference but gardens and nature don’t play with consistent rules. What happens one year this week, may occur a week or two sooner or later in following years. But you can watch nature for clues on its own readiness. When the forsythia erupt into yellow masses it’s a pretty safe bet that the garden is ready for a tidy. I’d still recommend watching for soil moisture and air temperature before falling back on this tip.
Be like spring and take your time. Embrace being a slow and “lazy” gardener. If the clean up process is part of what signals spring to you consider adding more early spring blooms to your space so that you can distract yourself by focusing on them rather then cleaning up.
Tip to keep out of the garden
Plant more late winter and early spring blooms