Ellie Goodnow: Is beauty in leaving the garden alone?

Getting your

Every October, I feel the familiar urge to tidy the garden.

There are spent flowers to cut back, leaves collecting beneath shrubs and perennials that no longer stand quite as proudly as they did in June. After months of tending, watering and weeding, there is something satisfying about reaching for the pruners and putting everything neatly to bed.

But the longer I garden, the more I realize that perhaps the garden doesn’t need me to put it to bed at all.

Some of my favorite winter garden flowers are my hydrangeas. I intentionally leave the faded blooms on the plants long after their summer color has disappeared. By late fall, they have faded into beautiful shades of parchment, tan and brown. On a cold morning, especially when frost touches them, they offer a completely different kind of beauty than they did in June.

I’ve started looking at the rest of my garden the same way.

The coneflower that has gone to seed isn’t necessarily finished. Neither is the black-eyed Susan or the goldenrod leaning slightly after a long summer. What we see as spent flowers can become a winter food source for birds. N.C. State Extens...