Wildlife garden - best left wild?

I've a slight dilemma this summer.

The whole reason I cultivated my patch of ground was to turn a wasteland into a wildlife garden. For 4 or 5 years I've done this. This year, initially because plants were hard to buy due to lockdown etc, I've done extremely little. Perennials like hineysuckle, perovskia, stachys, diascia, and, earlier in the year, aconites and saxifrage have all come up beautifully, but in general the garden is now completely overgrown - its like a jungle, where movement is virtually impossible. I like the unkempt look, but was tempted to do some "tidying" up just to give things space to breathe and maybe make may for new additions. But the wildlife is thriving. Birds, bugs and bees everywhere. Plus it feels wrong, having let it go this long, to start hacking away or "managing" anything. What do you think? Should I just let it do its worst and wait until autumn for any interventions?

 

Personally I'd leave it as it is at the moment unless it's important that something has to be done, for things that you feel need doing take notes and do them at a later date, a good wildlife garden is a well managed one not one that's left to it's own devices (I only know that because I watched a program about gardens and wildlife with Chris Peckham a few months ago ago )

 

Late Autumn management sounds a good idea, it gives time for seed dispersal and a lot of the insects are done for the year. The birds can be given a top up with feeders and ground dwellers shouldn't then get disturbed by your comings and goings

 

Thank you.

 

Thanks. I'm wondering if I should cut back the swathes of grass which tower over the garden's edge, if doing so could give other plants a chance to breathe there. I'll need to check if any are thriving under cover of grass as it could be beneficial to shelter some plants from rain. On the other hand, I'm tempted to cut out some dying or browning stalks and clumps along the edges and see if I can't diversfy the arrangement a bit.

 

Beautiful

 

Well, it has taken care of its self - and today I discovered a stunning geum, happily growing amid clumps of grass. Its presumably from the same geums I planted some years back, and which usually grow one or two at a time each summer. There was one other geum flower that had died, so I'm wondering what I should now do to maximise the chances of this one.