Some Mid-Winter Garden Clean Up

There were a few days of warm weather here recently, and I took advantage of it to do some garden cleanup!  Most of the perennial flower stems get left up deliberately, as the finches really love getting at the seeds.  But most of those have been all eaten or broken off and on the ground.  And I keep a nyjer seed feeder filled for them all year, so they are fine. 

The other stuff (old tomato, pepper, asparagus, and corn) could have been cleaned up at any time, but I was too slow for the first hard freeze.  So when I realized the ground had thawed enough to pull them, I did so.

"BEFORE" PICTURES: 

Peppers...

Asparagus...

Tomatoes...

 Monarda...

 Herbs...

"AFTER" PICTURES: 

Peppers...

 Asparagus...

Tomatoes...

 Monarda...

Herbs.  Well, I only had to take the dead parsley plant out.  Actually, I think I will plant something else in that spot.  I hardly ever use parsley.  The others are perennial (sage, thyme, oregano, chives)...

There are still other parts to clean up, but it was getting dark and the ground will be frozen again for at least a week.  The sedum and baptisia need cutting razing, and I'll need to cut the butterfly bushes back soon. 

But I may replace the butterfly bushes.  They are 15 years old and seem to grow weakly the past 2 years.  Thinner branches come from the trunks.  I think there are better varieties available recently.  More compact, but with steadier repeat blooms.  And as my selection of other plants has changed over the years, the purple butterfly bush flowers don't stand out as well as they used to.  I think red would be better!

Also, you can see in some of the pictures that the soil level has dropped as organic amendments have been used up and some washout has occurred.  Fortunately, I have a good pile of mulch that have been composting for 2 years and is now friable "soil".  Time to add all that into the beds.

It's not that I haven't added good organic fertilizer to the beds the past years, but bulk counts too.  And nothing beats good compost for THAT!