Many gardeners chop back the plants in their beds and borders as soon as they start to look tatty in October or November, but there is much to be gained from leaving the top growth alone until now – birds will take what sustenance they can from seed heads and will enjoy the protection from the weather that the dry foliage provides.
Insects, which the birds will enjoy feasting on when food supplies are short, will also find shelter in the foliage that would be absent were a tidy gardener to shear it to the ground in autumn. This is especially true of ornamental grasses, which are almost as decorative when their leaves and stems have turned to straw, particularly when they are rimed with frost.
But the time has come when any remaining herbaceous perennial foliage, and even the ornamental grasses, need to be attended to, simply to make way for new growth which will start pushing through the earth over the next few weeks once the weather begins to warm up.
I love ornamental grasses. They act as glue in my beds and borders, linking disparate groups of plants whose flower colour, if they were positioned side by side, would make for an unwelcome combination.
But my best use of them is in a narrow border at the top of a brick wall. The strip of earth is barely 18in wide, but the grasses, planted side by side, make a feathery ribbon that lasts right the way through the winter, squirting over the wall like a fountain.
At this time of year I take the shears to all of them, except those that are clearly evergreen and still showing signs of life. These can be divided up in a few weeks’ time and planted out again to give them room to grow more lavishly.
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