Just mentioning here that there are links to examples of what I’m referring to in my post that are not I am not affiliated with. It would be great, however, they’re just at a glance examples.

️ When cleaning up plant waste, have the patience to cut it down into mulch sized pieces, before leaving it.️

Listen, I know chop and drop is a thing but have you ever realized what leaving the old plant material does to your garden? If done right, it can be very beneficial. If done wrong, however, it can cause an unsightly mess and encourage wildlife, including insects onto your property.

Is it really that bad to create such a habitat? Truthfully, that answer depends on what you’re personally doing with your land. So really, before you read on, what exactly do you have in mind for your landscape? Do you mind allowing animals and insects alike to infest the area? Is it in your personal plan book to let nature take its course on your property? If so, don’t mind this post. Maybe check back later on for other cool ideas.

This post however, goes over organizing the landscape and keeping a healthy garden with the method of chopping and dropping.

First, I found knowing the hardiness zone you’re in is one of many keys. This one will tell you a good amount of what you need to know about your plants in particular, what they need, and how they need their care managed. Mainly, the zone you’re in tells the owner about the plant’s compatibility with the temperature in that particular climate.

For an example, I live in zone 7. Here we have experienced bitterly cold winters and blisteringly hot summers. Some years have been less so, however, the zone gives the guidelines that I look for to know that the plants I pick will survive through their growing season and depending on their yearly routine come back next year.

Do all plants come back yearly? Well, no. Depending on your zone, you’ll have perennials or annuals. Perennials come back each year while annuals usually last only one year. I’ve gotten lucky to find plants that are biannual, lasting two years or alternating blooming years with non-blooming blooming years.

My zone has impacted how I handle my plants chop and drop grooming season too. I call it grooming to be silly. I do in fact know that it’s pruning and shaping. I also typically try to take cuttings at the same time I’m pruning so that I can get pieces for propagation, but that’s a whole different post.

Let’s go ahead and get into it for real now.

There are alternatives to working with leaving the plant waste around your garden or moving them to a compost heap. Personally, I like to focus most of the collection into a brush area on the other side of one of my gardens. The idea is to build up the area and begin the process of both composting and designating a healthy spot for another garden.

While that’s all well and good, plant waste comes in all different shapes and sizes. What I’ve found to be the most helpful with this project is to listen to my father in law. He mentioned it for most of the season a couple years before. Time had slipped me and the advice my brother set in motion failed. The weight of the snow did not, in fact, level the brush. It was time to go back to the initial advice.

Honestly, I’ll never go back to the way things were since trying this. Chopping and dropping is fine, but actually taking the time to snip the dead or large winding branches with pruning sheers is everything. It quite literally solved all of my problems.

Now, I’m only using one plant to visually explain this, and yes it completely matters what time of year it’s done for every plant, but I kid you not I’m already reaping the rewards.

Let me introduce you to my rose bush.

A lot of things happened to this plant over the past year.

Last year I missed trimming it twice, both in the fall and then again in the spring. Usually, I do my best to keep a good air flow around the plant but missing those cutting back moments really ruined things for this rose bush. By not doing it, the rose bush grew closer into the boulder behind it, giving way to the ivy and vines climbing down the stone. This made its living environment hostile.

I can tell by several issues that the rose bush silently went through without me to care for it. Everything from noticing black spots on the leaves, to smaller bunched up leaf growth, to loads of thorns to protect itself and the flowering ratio plummeting horribly all happened this year. By the time September rolled around, I knew it was time.

I followed the weather, cut back the majority of the branches and left them in a pile in the yard. This is the example I want to give about what chopping and dropping can look like without the addition of the extra step.

That is everything that was cut off of the bush. What a mess!

But…

Breaking down the branches into mulch sized pieces fixed things. Not only did it make it easier to move but when it does break down it’ll happen faster.

This method is good for a vast majority of plants. This one here, with all of the growth, took me a solid 5 hours to do. It was absolutely worth it though. Moving the pieces to the next garden afterward was so easy! I used a reusable grocery bag and made quick work of dumping the pieces after.

I’d recommend using this method on just about anything. Trees might be tricky, but any sort of smaller plant is totally worth this amount of care.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Did this help you? Do you want to talk plants? *fingers crossed you do*

Until then, find happiness in what you do. <3