Spring Cleanup

the basics

• A spring cleanup includes cleaning out debris and leaves from garden beds, cutting back perennials & grasses, pruning shrubs and fruit trees, re-cutting edges on garden beds, and mulching the garden beds.

• You can begin most spring cleanup tasks once the snow is gone and the ground has had a chance to dry up.

• If it is now spring and you would like to clean up the leaves in that you left in your yard and garden in the fall, be sure to wait until the pollinators have emerged to go out foraging! This happens after we have had at least 5 days of temperatures above 50 degrees.

resources

• Books

  • Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape by Owen Wormser

• Articles

  • Can you begin garden cleanup and start gardening in early March? answered by Lynne M. Holland at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension: Garden and Yard

  • For Pollinators’ Sakes, Don’t Spring Into Garden Cleanup Too Soon! by Justin Wheeler of the Xerces Society.

  • Spring “Cleanup” in the Meadow by Gregg Raymond of the Wild Seed Project

  • The surprising downside of #NoMowMay by Sheila Colla of Rewilding

  • Should I mow my yard in May? The No Mow May debate by Backyard Ecology