Winter Pruning

I still have a few things in bloom such as the wall flowers, African daisies and a big bushy margarita.

Other plants such as the mini dahlias are finally starting to die off.

Will it do any harm if I just wait for the whole garden to be a shrivled up dead mess before I cut everything back? there are quite a few spiders and ground beetles still living in the plants at the moment.

Part of me is hoping the African daisys and margarita don't make the winter as they are massive now and consumed all the smaller plants around them

Cheers

 

There's no reason why you shouldn't leave your garden Adamsh as long as what is dead or dying isn't laying on other plants that are still green.

The Margarita particularly is likely to survive but you can always split that up to make it smaller when it's died back.

 

some things I keep for winter interest. Then finally come February, I have to cut, prune most and clean out as I have some early flowering in March.

 

Thanks all, appreciated.

I will leave for now and let the insects enjoy themselves lol.

 

There are a lot of perennials that I leave until well into spring anyway. Mostly hollow stemmed stuff such as Lobelia and Salvia as I don't want the damp rotting the rootstock from the inside out. I also leave some woody things such as Fuchsia, Penstemon and Phygelius, only pruning when I can see where the new growth is emerging from.