Keeping your garden plants in place provides natural food and shelter over the winter and increases the winter survival of birds, pollinators, and wildlife.

Lazy or “messy” gardening gives you an excellent excuse to delay garden cleanup until spring. Keeping your garden plants in place provides natural food and shelter over the winter and increases the winter survival of birds, pollinators, and wildlife.

Many butterflies and moths spend the winter as eggs, caterpillars, or pupae. Some have life cycles that require one place to pupate and another to spend the winter.

Caterpillars can spend the winter buried underground or in leaf litter; others become pupae and overwinter in a cocoon or chrysalis under a dried leaf, underground, or in leaf litter.

Mourning cloaks, question marks, and eastern comma butterflies overwinter as adults finding shelter in evergreens, tree cavities, leaf litter, or a pile of rocks.

Solitary bees generally spend the winter developing from egg to pupae and emerging from their nest as adults in spring.

Most bumble bees die at the end of summer; however, the fertilized queen survives the winter by burrowing a couple of inches into soil or leaf litter.

Other beneficial insects that overwinter include: assassin bugs, praying mantises, lacewings, wolf spiders, ground beetles and lady beetles.

Leaving layers of leaf litter provides a place for them to burrow in the winter. Awakening in the spring in your garden, they have an early presence and are available to feed on pests.

Most of our insect and nectar eating summer birds leave for the winter, finding more reliable food sources in the tropics.

Warblers, flycatchers, orioles and hummingbirds are absent from our area from fall to spring.

Seed eating species like black-capped chickadees, Northern cardinals and American goldfinches spend the winter months eating seeds and fruits as well as visiting bird feeders to supplement what they find.

Here are a few things you can do in the fall that will help birds and pollinators overwinter:

Delay garden clean up until spring after several days of 50 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, which allows overwintering pollinators to move out.

Leave areas where larval host plants occur as undisturbed as possible. Caterpillars and pupae may be overwintering in the stems and soil nearby.

Create layers and patches of thick leaf litter by mulching and spreading leaves in the garden, under trees, shrubs, and hedges instead of removing them. This litter also adds nutrients back into the soil.

Provide patches of bare soil for burrowing that are shaded from the sun.

Keep a few untidy corners and piles of woody debris in your garden.

Build overwintering sites by stacking a pile of rocks or logs, assuring that gaps are present. Shelter this stack from prevailing winds and rain. If you want to disguise the pile, plant a native vine or screen it with a selection of native nectar or larval host plants. You may need to replace logs or prune vines from time to time; if so, work in the summer so you don't disturb the sites from late fall to spring.Leave dead trees as snags. Insects feeding and overwintering in the wood and under the bark, become food for woodpeckers, nuthatches and other birds. Cavities in the dead trees can provide shelter for insects, birds, and wildlife.Keep dried flower heads in place until spring. Goldenrod, coneflowers, coreopsis, and sunflowers provide seeds for birds. Hollow-stemmed plants such as Joe pye weed, cup plant and sunflowers provide burrowing sites for bees. Allowing some fruits and berries to remain on shrubs and trees supplies a high fat food for birds and other wildlife. A good supply of seeds and fruit increases survival and overall health for breeding and nesting success in the spring.Maintain a bird feeding station to supplement the natural seeds available in your garden. The feeding station is good for the birds and their presence is a welcome sight during the gray, dreary days of winter.The next time your families and neighbors chide you about your messy garden, you can confidently tell them you are creating a wildlife winter haven.Contact the Penn State Extension Master Gardener Butler County Garden Hotline at 724-287-4761, Ext. 229, with questions about winter-related gardening practices.<em>Mary Alice Koeneke is a Butler County Master Gardener.</em>

Mary Alice Koeneke