Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Perennial seed picking and the plea to leave those perennials standing
I leave my perennials up for winter for a couple of reasons, winter interest for me and food and shelter for the birds.
I had a goldfinch munching early on the seeds of my coneflowers and blackeyed susans.
The chickadees are picking away at them too. I still have berries on my honeysuckle vines that, last year, the cedar waxwings went wild for. They devoured all the berries within just over an hour and there must have been 40 of them! It was amazing.
The milkweed seeds look awesome now, little frost on them and those black-eyed susan seeds also adds to their beauty. Beebalm seedheads and rose hips too. Oh then there’s all the aster seeds too.
Butterfly weed seeds will be bursting soon, if they haven’t yet.
Every bit of your ornamental grasses are beneficial to wildlife. All those plants you leave up also capture snow which gives protection to them and the soil they’re in!
Wow, there’s just NO reason to cut down those perennials!
Yarrow flowers are landing pads for birds. I’ve often used some of the flowing flowerheads of grasses in my container creations and then there are those hydrangea heads too! Of course there are hosta that should be cut back with their slimy foliage.
SOME may have seedheads left and you could leave them alone.
