First of all, thanks to those of you who emailed me pointing this out to me. I appreciate the fact that people are reading the column and that you called me out on not mentioning the other option with coneflowers — leaving the seed heads alone so that the goldfinches can clean them up!
Let me explain. I have quite a few coneflower varieties spaced around my perennial bed and have found over the last three years that they are reseeding heavily and crowding out the cultivars that I really like. Therefore I choose to cut my coneflowers back in order to prevent reseeding.
On the other hand, I have a lot of volunteer sunflowers. They come up on their own all over my garden and perennial beds and for the most part, I leave them alone and let them go to seed. This takes care of my goldfinches.
These email comments were a good reminder that everyone has their own garden philosophy or how they like to do things in the garden. I have a reason for cutting my coneflowers back and others leave them alone to feed the birds (I should have remembered to mention this fact in my article last week!).
Everyone has a gardening philosophy whether they know it or not. It’s how you treat your plants — and I don’t mean talking to them and playing music. It’s your overall approach to gardening.
For example, my philosophy is to put the right plant in the right place and then see what happens. I try to use very little pesticides but there are times when I might have to use them. I try to focus on good cultural practices rather than trying to save plants after they are in trouble.
The best thing about a gardening philosophy is that it’s yours. You can decide how you want to treat the plants in your garden.
Many gardening philosophies revolve around the use of chemicals in the garden. I find that today, many gardeners are trying to reduce the amount of pesticides used in the garden.
As an Extension employee, my job is to provide readers with science-based information and to give you all of your options, especially when it comes to pest management strategies. I am not going to decide which is best for you to use, but rather give you all of your options.
Depending on your philosophy, you can then decide what you want to do in the garden. My goal is to educate gardeners on best management strategies so thanks to the many readers who pointed out that I didn’t mention the use of the coneflower seeds.
What is your garden philosophy?
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