Picking up all the bigger sticks and branches in a natural woodland garden makes a major difference in the look and feel of the space. It is for pretty much the same reason you wouldn't leave all the deadfall from large mature trees in a more convential garden. All those sticks and branches fall in and on top of your plants. They also decompose much more slowly than leaves and can pile up quite a bit over time. The plants matter just as much in a woodland garden as any other garden. You don't want them buried in and fighting to come up through a bunch of sticks. It is the same reason I want to have all the remaining dried bits of the herbaceous perennials chopped down before early spring. The biggest bloom in a good east coast woodland garden is in the early spring. The majority of the native spring ephemeral wildflowers are less than a foot tall. You don't want the visual competition of a bunch of taller standing sticks with shorter plants. Bottom line is that keeping the forest tidy is to display the plants you and nature are growing to their best advantage.

This wildflower with small, oval, ~1/2" leaves was found in the Central Texas Hill Country (back in February). What is it?

I was back at this population today (during an 8 mile run) just a couple comments on what i observed in this population. They are at the base of a wet cliff. Many of the plants have the top 2/3 with simple leaves and maybe a few very deeply lobed ones at the bottom. Others have deeply lobed leaves all the way to the top and maybe a couple of simple leaves at the blooms. I have included here several pictures from plants that have mostly simple leaves also examples of the deeply lobed leaves on some plants i took a few of stems as well. let me know if these help and if more info is needed thanks, Charles

Yes hmm, so after reviewing all the North American species...I narrowed it down to Vernonia baldwinii (Western Ironweed), Vernonia missurica (Missouri Ironweed), and Vernonia glauca (Broadleaf Ironweed) due to their similarly wider leaves and modest height. But, I think I'm going to go with Vernonia baldwinii out of these. Which seems to be prevalent in this area, albeit normally larger with much more profuse flowering. But, I think this one probably just grew and flowered less because it was inside a shady forest...