'Think your garden is untidy? Don't remove all those dead plants yet'

Think your garden is untidy? Don't remove all those dead plants yet

By Lizzie Botticelli at 11/19/08 10:48

I was reading an article that I found fascinating today. I am a hopeful gardener that takes pride in having a spic and span garden all year round.

I always try to keep all of the dead leaves and plant matter picked up and removed from around my garden plants and flowers.

I didn't give much thought to the issue until I ended up with some ugly slimy slugs on my plants, and I decided to look into the cause of that.

Come to find out, slugs are very helpful and necessary in the life cycle of the plants. The recycling of dead plant matter is a very important process in the garden, putting fertility back into the soil. The slugs help by eating dead plants, which they actually prefer to live ones.

I never considered that the dead plants were actually beneficial to my plants. The slugs and other creatures eating the dead plants prevents the same from becoming overabundant and choking out your plants.

If you remove all of the dead plant matter, you not only remove the opportunity to naturally replenish nutrients in your soil, but by removing the slug's preferred food, there is only one item on his dinner menu as a result.

That one item would be your live prized speciments!

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