A manicured yard with a picture-perfect lawn, mulched flower beds, and precision-trimmed shrubs and trees is a question of taste. For wildlife and native insects in search of food and shelter, however, it is anything but beneficial. Not removing fallen leaves below trees, especially oaks, supports numerous beneficial arthropods, fungi, and bacteria that are essential for decomposition. Dried dead flower stalks provide nesting space for insects, and not removing the seed heads of flowers, such as the coneflower Echinacea, provides birds with food.
When it comes to edibles, on the other hand—your vegetable garden, berries, melons, and other small fruit, as well as fruit trees—keeping everything neat and tidy is not merely just for looks, it’s outright essential.
from Food52 https://ift.tt/3e9wdlf
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