Gardening Update: November 15, 2025

With the beginning of the week cold snap, fall has truly arrived. Leaves on deciduous trees and shrubs shift through vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds before falling to the ground. Perennial top growth dies back, and while some plants like cardinal flower and beardtongue keep evergreen rosettes through winter, many die back completely, leaving dried stems and seedheads with little visible trace of life beneath. Rather than viewing this as something to "tidy" up, consider how these processes fit into nature's ancient seasonal cycle of dormancy and renewal that has repeated for millions of years.

As deciduous leaves change color and eventually fall, and as perennials die back, plants pull nutrients from their leaves and top growth to store in woody tissue (trees and shrubs) or roots (all plants). These stored nutrients fuel continued root growth through fall and winter, and power next spring's growth before the plant generates new leaves to photosynthesize. This year's fallen leaves become next year's slow-release fertilizer—and critical wildlife habitat.

Leaf litter harbors next summer's firefly larvae, along with countless moths, beetles, and other insects (learn more about life in the leaf litter). The dried flower stems provide nesting sites for the next generation of many native bee species, while seedheads feed birds through winter. This organic layer also provides insulation and wind protection for root crowns. Think of this material as something to cherish, not tidy away. Find a balance between being a good neighbor and honoring your backyard ecosystem's lifecycle.

Rethinking Fall Cleanup

• Leaves: Leave them where they fall when possible—that's where plants need the nutrient and soil-conditioning benefits most. Where leaves must be removed (lawns, paths, streets), use them as 2-4" mulch in established beds instead of purchased hardwood mulch. Alternatively, collect them for leaf mold, or mow over them with a mulching mower to integrate them into lawns.

• Dead flower stems and perennial top growth: Ideally, leave stems standing through winter and into next summer—many native bees don't emerge from their stem nests until late summer. If neighborhood aesthetics require some tidiness, cut stems to 18-24", chop up the tops, and leave them in the garden. The bottom stem sections preserve stem-nesting bee offspring, while chopped stems and seedheads continue providing most of their winter function. While this isn't a complete cleanup, it signals to neighbors that you care.

Interesting Gardening Content

Growing Greener: Edwina van Gal Closes The Loop
Thomas Christopher and Edwina van Gal of the Perfect Earth Project explore treating your landscape as a closed system that retains all biomass and nutrients—an expansion of the fall cleanup approach discussed above.

Growing Greener: All About Moths
Emily May of the Xerces Society discusses one of nature's overlooked pollinators: moths. Often dismissed as sweater-destroying pests, moths are actually highly effective pollinators and serve as the foundation of food chains for everything from bats and songbirds to larger mammals.

University of Minnesota: Butterfly Gardening Primer
A comprehensive primer covering butterfly lifecycle, behavior, identification, and plant selection to support butterflies throughout their entire lifecycle. Though written for the upper Midwest, it's highly applicable to our region as we share many butterfly and plant species.

Leaf and Limb: Safe and Sound - How Pruning Can Make Your Tree Strong
Want your young trees to develop into structurally sound trees that last 100 years? This guide provides an accessible but thorough explanation of structural pruning principles. Even if you're not interested in doing it yourself, this will help you ask better questions when hiring an arborist.

Plant of the Month

Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

During an October trip to Sicily, Virginia Creeper was the most surprising familiar plant we encountered. Though considered invasive in parts of Europe, Sicilians have embraced it, using it extensively on walls and arbors. The brilliant red fall color combined with clusters of blue-black berries was stunning.

Locally, the best example of embracing this native "weed" is at Camp North End, where it grows on building facades. I haven't visited since summer, but I anticipate it would have equally vibrant color right now. Virginia Creeper provides significant ecological value: its berries are consumed by more than 35 bird species, and its leaves serve as larval host plants for several sphinx moth species, making this vigorous vine an important part of our native ecosystem when given appropriate space to climb.

Upcoming Events

Queens University: Robin Wall Kimmerer - Connected Campus 2025: Our Relationship to the Natural World
December 2, 2025 at 7-8pm
In her new bestseller The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer (botanist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation) harvests serviceberries alongside birds and considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?

Wild Ones Webinar: Larry Weaner - Living in the Liberated Landscape: My Yard
November 20, 2025 at 7pm
Discover the power of ecological garden design in this free national webinar with award-winning landscape designer Larry Weaner. Drawing on more than 35 years of experience, Larry shares practical strategies for designing dynamic gardens that evolve naturally, support biodiversity, and bring lasting beauty to your yard.

What We're Up To

We're currently in the field installing new gardens and will continue planting through mid-December. We'll be shifting focus to design and planning work for late winter/spring 2026 installations. If you've been thinking about adding native plantings to your property or redesigning an area, now is a great time to reach out—we have openings for new projects.