How about cutting them down before they yellow? It wouldn't hurt them to be chopped off a bit earlier.

Or go au' naturale and let them be and don't bother? (my approach to gardening)

Yes I have to agree on both counts, a lot of cutting and a lot of joy. I have quite a few Iris s. and some of them are very large. I do them among the first round of the cutting back because once they splay they cover other plants. I ponytail and cut and cut...

Some of the Ornamental grasses are a big job too. My Molinia 'Karl Foerster' gets at least 9' tall so I cut the inflorescence in fall and usually the mound as well but if I do not get to the mound it is not a big deal to do it in spring.

Miscanthus 'Purpurascens' still looks good but will get flattened with the snow. I like to cut it when the foliage is damp/wet since it makes it much easier to gather up the cut stems.

I odn't like cutting down hostas. They get slimy and ... stretchy, is the only word I can thing of. You go to pull a dead stalk out and it just stretches and won't let go. So then you try to cut it, and it's slimy and won't cut cleanly. And if you wait too long and they come out on their own, they gunk up the leaf mulcher because, well, because they are slimy and stretchy and don't mulch up nicely.

Daylilies are kind of a pain too. I mean, they pull up pretty easily, but no matter how many handfuls you grab there always seems to be more! And there's always at least one stubborn brown string in every clump that eludes you and is determined to stay in the crown - not necessarily even connected anymore, but it just won't come up, whether you are using your hands or a rake!

By the way, I am typing this as I am looking out the window thinking how I should be outside doing some clean-up before it rains this afternoon....

:)

Dee

Edited to add, as I sit here looking out said window, I've come to the conclusion that I just really don't like doing any kind of clean-up in the garden at all....

Just let it all be. Cover with mulch and let the remains enrich the soil for next year. Relax,

Hostas deliquesce of their own accord. They don’t need cutting down.

For daylilies you can just zip over them with a weed whacker. If you don’t want to rake out the fallen stuff just leave as callirhoe suggests.

I am not much of a clear-up, cutter or weeder at this time of year. Partly because I really need to keep the soil as covered as possible...but mostly because I am idle and have more pressing tasks which do not involve grubbing about with slimy leafage in the mud.

Having said that, one of the most annoying tasks is the removal of old leathery leaves from my dieramas. Worse than the most recalcitrant grasses, I have to saw away at fibrous tough foliage with a fine toothed grass cutter (secateurs are useless) - I always wonder if I should put them to more use in basketry or summat.

Thorny Lantanas are a real chore. I usually wait until spring to see how far down they got zapped by the cold. If there is no selective pruning to be done, they can just be buzzed with a chainsaw.

The other thing I really dread is stinky, juicy banana stems. Those require a saw because they're too big to fit in the jaws of a pruner and they're thick and tough. Banana leaves are some of the few that I bother to remove because they decompose too slowly and are big enough to cause problems for new spring growth if left on the ground.

There are usually some Gladiolus leaves still hanging around in the spring. If so, I remove those.

I don't do anything with smaller leaves, they just hit the ground and become part of the mulchy layer.

Like many of you, we leave as much old perennial growth and fallen leaves as logical to ’compost in place’ for the winter, removing big stuff or stuff prone to disease or that doesn't break down well (e.g. Persicaria polymorpha foliage, herbaceous peony foliage, Solomon’s seal foliage, rodgersia and astilboides foliage plus some late-season shrub prunings makes up most of the fall clean-up). In the spring one of those three-pronged hand cultivators is handy for removing stuff like hosta foliage, daylily foliage and scuffling misc. dead/composted leaves as mulch around plants. The grassy iris foliage is scuffed up and cut down in spring just as the new foliage is emerging, so the old foliage gets cut back to just above the new green shoots. It doesn’t easily pull loose like the dayliliy foliage and flower stems do!

If you like the neat-and-tidy bare ground look look, you wouln’t like our garden! But this approach is a whole lot less work, and the plants and the soil like it :-)

Telling me to relax is like telling a fish to swim haha! That's actually my problem - I'm the laziest gardener ever. I always have something better to do than housework, and I almost always have something better to do than fall clean-up. Even if it's sitting on the couch doing nothing lol.

Nine years out of ten my garden is never completely cleaned up. We have almost 40 oaks on just under an acre, plus the neighboring trees, so leaf clean-up is the priority, and that doesn't always even get done (oaks=March leaf drop lol). I used to do it by hand with a rake and a mulcher, but when my husband lost his job (i.e more time to spend at home) he bought a mulching mower and it's much easier now, so that leaves me some time to clean up the garden. I usually start with the vegetable garden, although there have been years where my (dead) tomato plants, stakes and all, are up the next spring. I do try to clean up loose debris in the beds at least, to help cut down on my mole population. And occasionally I think of the neighbors and the fact that they have to live next to me lol. But they enjoy my gardens in the spring and summer so I think they live with any dead tomato plants through the winter!

But yeah, no neat-and-tidy bare ground here either!

:)

Dee

Siberian iris are so beautiful yet short-bloomed, but I think it's that dead foliage which finally convinced me to send them elsewhere. In my mom's garden I try to run the mower over them end of summer in order to get the bulk of the foliage tidied up before it becomes that stringy, wet, muck of a pile.

Thanks perren.all for that molina! It's now on my list of things to keep an eye out for :)

Dee I managed to get out there this morning to get a few more pots in the ground and hoses cleaned up. The last bulbs went in yesterday. I'm feeling somewhat smug ;)

Just a few cannas left to dig and lug into the garage and maybe a few more seed pots to tuck in for the winter. Even when I think I'm done there's still more to do... even if I end up never doing it...

@mxk3 z5b_MI: that’s a beautiful pic! I love the dark purple iris with the soft blue of the spruce behind!

I’m with @diggerdee zone 6 CT on this, I really dislike cutting down hostas.

I mostly leave everything in place though, except for bearded iris and peonies, which get cut down every year.

You are so welcome katob! It turns the most glorious shade of yellow in autumn or some years a fiery orange. Always happy to be an enabler!

Grasses would have to be the plant I don't look forward to doing. Especially because I have multiples too. And I don't even have the big ones. I would prefer to clean everything up in the Fall, so the bulbs come up and put on a display without my having to get out there and clean the beds up. But, I keep reading posts about leaving everything for overwintering beneficials.

PM2 - you just need to pay attention to where you put the bulbs :-) I put most of the small/short ones under hostas - the hosta leaves get removed with the hand cultivator in spring before their leaves or the bulbs emerge very much and then the bulbs bloom before the hosta leaves spread open; the open hosta leaves hide dying bulb foliage. Early things like snowdrops are planted with perennials so the perennial foliage hides the bulbs. Most of the tulips I plant are the smaller ’botanical’ types that also get hidden by perennial foliage as the bulbs die back. Larger tulips get the finished flower-stalks deadheaded back to the leaf base at ground level. With that vertical dead bit gone, the fading leaves are less visible - if the bulbs are planted in densely planted areas - I have NO bulb-only beds; bulbs are just another seasonal interest in a mixed bed.

For the ornamental grasses in the back of beds I've been leaving the tops were they fall. In the spring I swipe back and forth a few times with the hedge trimmers so the debris ends up in foot long bits and then crush it down around the plant. Come to think of it I never notice it once things green up, I'll have to see if it builds up since a few of the miscanthus seem to leave behind a haystack when first cut.

Hosta cleanup never bothers me. I leave it until spring and they're all dried up and loose by then or I dump chopped leaves over them in the fall (no voles here fortunately) and never think twice about the mushy hosta leaves underneath.

Like others have mentioned, I'm also getting lazier over the years.

Woody - That's a good idea about putting them behind hostas. Most of my hostas are in shade and the majority of bulbs I do are daffodils, that want more sun. But I do snowdrops and some scilla. I do have those in one bed with hostas and epimedium but I can think of a few more places I could put some behind other hostas.

I really dislike looking at dying bulb foliage so I do already position them behind perennials. In my front full sun bed, I never used anything but Hyacinths, but about 5 years ago I tried a mix of miniature daffodills and I love those. In October I had to dig up a patch that was in the way of a renovation I was making and discovered 5 bulbs had turned into a lot of bulbs lol I potted them up 3 to a pot and ended up wtih 40 pots! lol That was a first to get so many from one patch. I'm not sure which variety they were. I guess I'll find out in the spring. My husband finished adding them to the bed on Saturday as the last act of the gardening season. They all went behind perennials. The thing I love about them is the foliage is a lot smaller than regular daffs and really are a lot less noticeable.

But I still would rather all the clean up of the perennials are done so the bulb display looks attractive. Right now I still have all the Monarda stems and seed heads and Penstemon, almost dead Mums, grasses, sedums etc. all intact. I still may clean it up some after everything freezes. At least in my front bed. I have other beds that I leave alone until spring.

Unless there's a Molinia cultivar 'Karl Foerster', I think Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' is meant above. BTW, I've always thought it one of the easiest of grasses to cut down.

I try to mimic the prairie and also enjoy grasses through the winter, I tend to pick a good day in Feb, and set the clump alight. It feeds my pyro complex.

laceyvail both the Molinia and the Calamagrostis were named after this highly respected plantsman. I have both and would never want to be without either. It does make it somewhat confusing. They are not the only repeated names in my garden as I have a Hosta & a Clematis both named 'Blue Angel'.

Eryngium has to be the worst for me.

tj

My two worst cleanups were always Siberian iris and tall phlox:

I have a big patch (or more :) of Siberian iris and love the leaf color in autumn, so I leave cleanup until spring. I used to struggle cleaning it up with hand pruners, and then I discovered that it was so much easier to grab a big handful of leaves and use grass shears to chop them off near the ground. Much easier for me.

Re tall phlox, I grow many large patches (named varieties, mutts given by friends, and my own naturally occurring hybrids) and I used to hand-prune each stem for cleanup. The stems are substantial and sturdy and It used to kill my hand to do all that pruning… then I discovered that, in spring, I could snap the dried stem off with my gloved hands. So much easier.

rosaprimula, my ears perked up when you wrote ’basketry’…. are you a weaver?! If you allow basketry willow (Salix) as a perennial in this context, that’s my worst to cut down! I grow 4 varieties and need to coppice it annually, and my window for harvesting is when it’s dormant and I can get to it (i.e., not too much snow), so either the end of November or in March (before the buds break). I’m half way through my harvest now!

Patty, are you saying you grow a Willow to use the dead stems? for basket making?

Wow, that must be a very satisfying feeling to be able to use your garden in such a productive way. Something lasting from the garden. Very pretty baskets! How did you learn to make them?

That's wonderful!

Thank you, prairiemoon and Tiffany! I taught myself to weave with reed and other garden materials first, then I grew willow and figured out how to prepare and weave with it.

That's impressive, Party_Music50. Do you sell what you make?

Thank you, mxk3. Yes, I sell and donate all proceeds to charity, and I also donate baskets for charity auctions. No website, if that’s what you mean.

I am elated because I finished my willow harvest yesterday!!! :)

Those are pretty baskets! I do some willow coppicing too. More for fencing and gardening stuff rather than fine weaving with it. And it is one of the more PITA perennial projects for me- I do it in late winter. Heavy loppers and a folding hand saw to cut poles. Hand trimmers to cut off all the fines. I think it's more of a PITA because it's cold out when I do it. I tell myself I will learn how to weave the fines into something useful, but I'm not there yet. This next harvest of fines will likely go to thatching bundles on a rest station I'm working on out back.

My worst perennials are the olives. Weedy, invasive, grows fast, seeds everywhere, and has wicked thorns. And a crummy growth structure to cut down.

My worst is cutting back hydrangeas. You definitely need a pruner, and they fall in every direction, and there are always hidden ones on the ground, and the stems themselves are just so bulky.

I’m not too anal about ‘cleaning up’ the garden - you know, leave the leaves and all that. However, usually there are points in the warmer days of winter where I run outside and do some chopping which I will be sorry if I don’t do before spring. For example, I love the winter interest of my Karl Foerster grass - however, that thing needs to be chopped down before it pushes out spring growth. So I run out suddenly mid-winter with my shears, and down it goes. The neighbours probably think I'm crazy, but I'm beyond that now.

For me the ugly chore is lambs ears—- they look like dead mice.

We had such a long spell of premature spring that I cleaned up the day lillies, chrysanthemums, and said mice. The daffodils now look much nicer. I don’t know if the whacking I gave the russian sage was a good idea or not. It may hit 20 tonight, I hope that the exposed day lilies don‘t suffer.

Old hellebore foliage! I don't like to do it in the fall because I enjoy the green during the winter plus I feel like it protects the flower buds in late winter. But once the new foliage has sprouted, it's a pain to trim underneath and I have a ton of hellebores.

Last week I cut quite a bit of them back which was my first time doing it before the new foliage was out. Much easier, although some plants are still buried in snow. They're already budded and/or blooming so the flowers are now above the foliage anyway.

Barberry. It's it a rocky area and I can seem to dig it up, so I just hack it back and in return, it hacks me.

If Lespedeza is a perennial then that's my entry in "worst to cut back."

Mine are enormous which serves their purpose extremely well, but the whole thing has to be cut back in early spring before the new foliage comes in. This is one of the few plants I don't get done in the fall/winter- it blooms so late in the season that by the time it's done so am I. So they sit over there all winter until it's warm enough to deal with them. Plus they're on a horrific slope where it's difficult to even stand, so I have to sit on my butt, scoot sort of under them, and get to lopping.

Thankfully it is a task so difficult to screw up that I do turn the husband loose on them- I don't let him prune much without me standing there with a pointing stick, but he can sure do this one.