"I have never been a very orderly gardener"................ "In spring I prefer planting to weeding".............. "I like to watch birds pulling seeds from dried flowers, so I let the flowers fall to ruin in summer instead of deadheading them to force the plant to produce new blooms".............. "In fall it has always seemed almost criminal to tidy up the golden windfall of sugar-maple leaves covering the ground like pirate’s treasure in a storybook, so we let them lie until they’re finally brown and brittle"............. "By then there’s no good reason not to bring out the mower and reduce the leaves to shreds so they can feed the trees they fell from"..........."I don’t tuck in my flower beds anymore"............ "Year by year, the little creatures that share this yard have been teaching me the value of an untidy garden"................. "This year I learned not to cut back the monkey grass, and now the robins will have plenty of dried berries on the first snow day in coming winters"................."An unkempt garden offers more than just food for the birds"............. "The late offspring of certain butterflies, like the black swallowtail, spend fall and winter sealed away in a chrysalis clinging to the dried stems in what’s left of a summer garden".......... "Others overwinter as eggs or caterpillars buried deep in the the leaf litter beneath their host plants"........... "Most species of native bees — or their fertilized queens, at least — hibernate underground during winter".......... "An industrious gardener pulling up dead annuals could expose them to the cold, and one who mulches too deeply could block their escape in spring"............ "Other beneficial insects like ladybugs, lacewings and parasitic wasps spend winter in the hollow stems of old flowers"............... "These days we don’t drag fallen limbs out to the street for the city chipper service to clean up, either, and we don’t haul our Christmas tree away at the end of the holidays"........... "A good brush pile is a boon to ground-foraging birds, which eat insects from the decomposing wood, and to all manner of small animals hiding from predators or sheltering from the wind and snow"---Margaret Renkl(NY Times Contributing OP ED Writer)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/let-your-winter-garden-go-wild.html

Let Your Winter Garden Go Wild 

FEB. 10, 2018

Margaret Renkl

https://www.welcomewildlife.com
/build-brush-pile/

Build a brush pile

Don’t throw it away! Don’t chip it!
 Don’t burn it! Do what

 lovers of backyard wildlife do — 
throw limbs, branches, 

twigs and brush in a pile
 and ignore it.

RED FOX AND PUPS OUTSIDE THEIR

 BRUSH PILE DEN

Easy to build
Begin with a layer of large
 branches, loosely 

stacked parallel to each other.
Don’t use treated

 lumber, railroad ties or lumber
containing lead. 

You can also use stones in the
base. Top the 

base with smaller branches
and twigs. When 

you trim shrubs, add the
 trimmings to the pile.

Every year the pile will shrink
 a little as wood 

rots and falls apart, so you can
 just keep adding to it.

Screen the brush pile with
plants that offer 

something beneficial to wildlife,
 such as fruiting

 native shrubs and nectar plants
for butterflies.