In defense of messy gardens

ELISABETH M. BROWN

Ah, summer, when most of us want to minimize chores and maximize fun.

This is the time of year to practice some guilt-free neglect: Keep up

the watering, but forget the tidying up.

I espouse messy gardens not just because I have too little time,

but also because small wildlife prefers more “natural” appearing

spaces.

Leave some leaf litter on the ground. Wilderness isn’t very neat,

but it provides lots of resources for birds, salamanders and lizards

-- the seeds and insects that accumulate under leaf litter. (Later in

the year, hibernating butterfly pupae need the cover.) My small

garden boasts two fat Western Fence Lizards, evidence that it has

plenty of insects (and no cats).

Dead leaves and other mulch also protect the surface of the soil

from the sun, softening it, retaining moisture and allowing

beneficial earthworms to flourish.

If your favorite shrub reaches out over the lawn, let it grow.

It’ll reduce the lawn and increase the amount of foliage (trees and

shrubs) in the garden.

The more cover and food your garden provides, the more birds.

Practice organic gardening and limit or eliminate the use of toxic

chemicals in your garden. Birds need insect food, mainly species that

are not garden pests, but all insects are susceptible to pesticides.

The birds, in turn, will help keep insects and spiders under control

throughout the garden and around the eaves of the house. I love

watching warblers or flycatchers feast on a swarm of flying termites!

Weeds are plants that choose where to grow, uninvited. If you are

near a natural area (that’s anywhere in Laguna), try letting

mysterious small plants grow for a while before yanking them. The

“weeds” may be native plants, their seeds carried in by birds or

blown by winds.

Right now I’m agonizing over the fate of a Mulefat shrub that

appeared uninvited this spring. Already it towers over the fig tree

planted two years ago.

Native plants impart information about soil conditions, and

Mulefat normally grows in intermittent stream channels. That means

there’s a lot of subsurface moisture in that spot of the garden.

Sometimes, native plant seeds have been in the soil all along,

just waiting for the right conditions. When we reworked our garden in

Laguna Canyon about 20 years ago, the disturbance of the soil around

the house coincided with the heaviest rain in a century. The

combination brought forth a bumper crop of native Toyon shrub

seedlings from buried seeds, raised to the light by our digging.

In the 1993 fire, a neighbor’s house burned down completely,

exposing the desiccated soil under the house to sunlight and rain for

the first time in 60 years. We were all amazed when a crop of

seedling native coastal sage shrubs appeared inside the footprint of

the old house.

My advice is to resist that urge to neaten up the yard, pick up

your summer reading book and head for the beach! Leave the garden to

the lizards and birds.

* ELISABETH BROWN is a biologist and the president of Laguna

Greenbelt Inc.