The Lazy Gardener: When Doing Nothing is the Best Care

Welcome to The Lazy Gardener, a regular column that celebrates low-effort, nature-friendly approaches to creating a healthy, thriving garden. Barbara Gregerson is a Consumer Horticulture Educator with Michigan State University Extension who helps gardeners make informed, environmentally friendly choices.

Have you seen them, those ambitious people who can’t wait to get into their garden at the first hint of Spring? Raking, blowing, and loading up leaf bags?  Don’t fall for the peer pressure; there’s a whole ecosystem still sleeping in those leaves. 

There’s a lot of pressure to clean up the mess because Spring has arrived.  Well, it hasn’t.  The first day of Spring might be March 20, but the insects don’t care; they want to stay warm in their cozy leaf bed.  They know there is still cold weather and possibly snow in the future; now is not the time for spring cleaning.

A tidy garden too early in the Spring means evicting about 90% of the moths, butterflies, beetles, wasps, flies, and spiders.  These include the food for the baby birds in the spring, the pollinators, and the beneficial insects.  If you want to see more butterflies and birds in your garden, be lazy. Leave the leaves. 

Why? Ask a caterpillar

Picture a caterpillar in the fall.  It notices the weather is becoming a little chilly.  It’s time to stop eating and find shelter under a tree in a nice pile of leaves.  The leaves are a cozy blanket to help protect the caterpillars during winter.  The caterpillar knows to wait until the temperature is above 55℉, but before that can happen, a few warm days come along, and suddenly the leaf blowers can be heard through the neighborhood.  What is happening?  The protection of the leaves has blown away, the caterpillar can’t crawl away, can’t burrow, can’t grab the leaves to cover up again.  The warm shelter is gone, the temperature drops again, the caterpillar is exposed and dies. 

Unless …. The gardener is lazy. 

What should you do instead of raking the leaves?

Stroll through your yard like a tourist in your own garden.

What do you see? Are the yellow daffodils showing off? Are the purple crocus blooming? Did the snowdrops beat everyone to the party again? Are the forsythia buds bursting at the seams? Are the birds practicing their playlist?  

There is more winter coming, and the insects are not ready.  Let them rest, put off yard work for another month, and enjoy the displays and sounds of spring.  Let the garden be messy and sleepy a little while longer.  Because sometimes the kindest thing you can do for your yard is absolutely nothing. 

Photo: Woolly Bear Caterpillar looking for cover. Photo by Bob Hilscher