Attempting to clean up these beds (southwest Montana, zone 4a), and have no idea where to even start…it’s a lot of native wildflowers, grasses, plus some peonies…and the beds are about 4’6” wide and 75’ long…any advice?
by PickMe_Nordics
Attempting to clean up these beds (southwest Montana, zone 4a), and have no idea where to even start…it’s a lot of native wildflowers, grasses, plus some peonies…and the beds are about 4’6” wide and 75’ long…any advice?
by PickMe_Nordics
9 Comments
What native wildflowers / grasses are there?
Wait until everything gets green. There’s no reason to “clean it up”.
75 feet?
Echoing the comment you don’t *need* to clean it up yet, but if you must I think the general advice is to wait at least 10 days of 50+ degree weather so any bugs nesting in there come out of nesting.
If you don’t mind the mess for now, leave it and see what pops up so you know what you have! As others said, we will help you figure it out!
Ok thanks all! I’ll give it some more time, but yeah, it’s 75 feet and I have about another 75’ of the same (even more unruly looking due to lack of retaining wall/boundary) down on the other side of my yard. I’ll come back in a few weeks and repost! It’s been warm here in Montana and was looking for an excuse to spend some time outside with a project 😝
If you wait for things to start turning green, a plant ID app will go a long way and teach you about what you have in your yard! And if there are any plants you want to thin, you can always give them away on Facebook
A lot of people are saying to wait, and definitely wait until the weather is stable, but I start by doing a general rake to get out the loose leaves, stems, then I try to trim any dead stems to about 6-8in. The trim kind of helps me keep track of where the previous plants were, and I pretend that it gives them some stability while they’re growing. That gives you a little bit of time to look for any early weeds like ground ivy, dandelions, etc that you can decide what to keep or pull. It also helps expose early growth to the sun faster
If there is no bushes, with the concrete wall there Id personally start by spraying down the lawn and along the fence line with water then doing a SMALL controlled burn just to get away the debris. Small sections at a time, not super high heat just a little to burn off the dead stuff.
Id do it before they started coming through the ground. If theyre sproutinf I wouldnt do it.
All the flowers you listed are prairie flowers and will be fine and even benefit from a small burn. Im assuming if theyre native then anything else would benefit from it too.
It would clear out the dead stuff and allow you to watch for stuff coming through.
Then do what others said, watch it, identify whats coming through to see what else is in there. Make a sketch of what you got too throughout the year so you remember.
I’ll echo what others have said. It sounds like some good stuff there. See what all come up and identify them. Maybe watch out for some bullies.
I’m really curious about that wall you have. Is that common where you are? It is certainly unique looking to me.