I'm tearing out ratty looking enormous zinnias, but leaving the rest. Figure it will be bare and far from inviting soon, but don't want to hasten that. SO I vote for leaving yours.

Rosie, Sugar Hill, GA

i used to do it in spring ... [especially whatever didnt get done in fall]

my God woman ... in my z5 first frost isnt for nearly 45 to 60 days.. dont you think you are jumping the shark a bit????

i suppose you clean your house too.. lol ...

listen to me.. DO IT WHENEVER YOU WANT TO .. they are yours .. and you are master of your domain.. lol

ken

LOL Yep I better wait. Ur so funny and so right! I know I am getting ahead of myself. Just hoping others were too. I think I love cleaning the beds out and topping with fresh compost as much as I like planting everything. And when beds are cleaned out I can manage to get in and clean the windows without trampling on all the plants. But yes you are right and I had to laugh when I read your comment. Funny!

If I'm not saving the pieces for overwintering, whatever's left after a few frosts will decompose under the added leaves I'll put on the bed just fine. Any woody stalks left in the spring should fall right into your hand. With something like a vine on a fence, as soon as frost kills that, I would tear it all down 'cuz it's too visible and ugly. No doubt ugly anything should go, it defeats the whole purpose. Like Ken said, you get to do it your way. And not to put to fine of a point on it, but if you're going to trample, it seems kind of pointless to remove first. I might use a piece of cardboard to trample the whole area evenly (but gently, you don't want to compact too much) in that situation. Then add the compost you mentioned, good to go.

I've actually been trying to decide myself. I have family coming in (end of September) that I only see every 3-4 years, so I'm definitely pulling the ratty-looking ones out. I am contemplating another section that is not looking too badly, because I have currently nonblooming daylilies I'd like to put there. I hate to pull the blooming plants out early, though. I may just put them in hanging baskets. :)

So, it sounds like I can just cut them down to the stem and leave the stems in the ground to decompose? That would make things easier, far as planting seeds now. :)

the easier answer.. suggested by someone else ...

when something just gets to ugly.. just get rid of that one ... and work your way thru the beds.. never worrying that it HAS TO BE done in fall .. whatever gets done.. gets done . and then we gardeners coined a term for the rest...

WINTER INTEREST .. lol ...

ken

I never clean anything up until spring. Unless a plant is dead it doesn't get pulled out. After a killing frost I pull the annuals and lay them around my perennials for winter protection. They collect the snow so my perennials get good snow cover. By pulling the annuals though I know that anything left is perennial and I don't pull out a perennial that just hasn't shown signs of life yet.

By leaving the annuals in the bed the leaves drop and enrich the soil and you only thing left to do in spring is to gather up the dried stems. The benefits of douing this far outweighs the bit of messiness in my beds for a couple of weeks until the snow comes

Spring, when I'm ready to plant the next set of annuals. If I mulch in the fall, at most I just break the stems over and cover with mulch. The only exception for me is if there is a disease problem.

Since I measure my fallen leaves in yards, I have enough to do just keeping my garden from leaf drowning.

Would love to hear what annuals y'all are talking about. Most of mine are zinnias and cleome - 4 - 6' tall - can't leave them. Don't even compost because they are so woody. I'd need a 20' tall compost bin to hold them all. I'd like more diversity, hoping to hear recommendations. I'm just north of Atlanta.

Thanks, Rosie

After the frost gets rid of the leaves, I do put large stems like that, and mammoth sunflower stalks in an open compost pile, either the "main" pile or just a pile where they were growing (to soon be covered with leaves.) Cut into a few pieces, most will be compost by spring, just throw any still-big chunks back to the pile.

Rosie, do you mean more diversity in your compost? Whatever you have, make it fit, or start a second pile or bin. Over winter, space that is usually used for annuals can be used for composting. Just spread more flat than an actual pile shape and cover with leaves so it looks "normal." If it's too thick in the spring, spread some to other areas. At least the area in question required no hauling of compost this way. You also save bin space by applying leaves directly to planting areas instead of composting them. If you mow/bag them, they disappear much more quickly and don't blow around, but raking them onto the beds works pretty well. If any of this is practical for you and your yard, I hope it helps in some way. Maybe you could mow-chop your stalks except the really hard base?

purple, I really meant diversity in annuals. Love, love the zinnias and probably, no, make that definitely, should control them better. They are all volunteers. I pull out hundreds of babies, but prob should pull out three times more than I do, so they'd each have plenty of space.

I drag all at the top of my hillside to the far back, but the area may be too dry - they take at least two years to break down.

I sheet compost lots of things - also, finally have wire fencing and posts - just waiting for someone to help me do a bin out back. Will try your tip of adding mower mulched leaves. Only prob there is that most of them are white and red oak and they don't compost at all quickly.

Back to the annuals. I don't like marigolds or begonias. Want some lower plants though and would love recommendations.

Hope I'm not diluting the OP's post. Tell me if I am, folks.

Thanks much, Rosie

I usually remove the annuals as they begin to look like crap. Part of the reason is purely aesthetic but also to remove disease and insect 'stuff ' such as fungal spores, insect eggs, etc.

But I don't rip them out. Roots add a great deal of really good biomass to the soil; increase important channels through the soil system and other goog things.

I just snip the annuals cleanly to the ground and let the roots decay in place.

its interesting here.. on two levels ...

we great white north peeps.. seem to like things poking up thru the snow for winter interest.. but apparently your brown earth winter peeps want the mess cleaned up .. i guess i can forget about the mess .. under a foot of snow or two.. lol ...

and again.. us cold zone peeps.. do have.. literally.. a drop dead date.. and that is the first killing frost .. sometime late in october ... after that.. there is little issue about what still looks good.. lol ...

so pay attention to the zone of the reply.. and see if you glean anything else ...

ken

Yes, Ken. I didn't used to clean much of anything until spring when I was in OH. There's not really a time when there's nothing going on here, and totally agree, the lack of snow makes visibly ugly spots much more, well, ugly.

Rhizo, don't you compost your annuals anyway? Do you have a reliably hot pile? If not, I wouldn't think it would make much difference where they rot, in regard to killing bugs/pathogens, especially if none were in evidence on the plants when frost took them. Is there something else I should know?

Rosie, I don't know if diluting is as much of an issue as getting a quantity of responses to such a "buried" question. Nothing wrong with a new discussion!

Most of the leaves in this yard are some kind of oak and when mixed with grass in the mower bag, they are well decomposed in a few months. The first year I "leafed" the beds, the leaves did take longer to decompose, but the past couple years have been remarkably different, as if whatever chemical reaction or microscopic critters that decompose oak leaves are now in those areas in much higher numbers or concentrations. The increase in organic matter in the soil in general seems to help keep everything more moist, or more accurately, to take longer to dry out.

I also filled a washtub with nothing but leaves/grass from the mower last fall and it's my best one this year (there are 3, all with a mix of Coleus, Persian shield, Perilla.)

I start taking mine out when they start looking ratty and/or the colors start getting on my nerves. My annuals are in the cool color range and to my eye those colors look "off" come fall - so I start taking them out. I've already taken out some that got toasted (because I forgot to water the pots) and will get others taken out this weekend. I usually buy a few mums and asters this to spruce things up in the fall.