7 Benefits of a Messy Garden

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Messy gardens perfectly represent this phrase, as they create a new standard of ornamental beauty in the landscape. They also save you a ton of work! Join native plant gardener Jerad Bryant to see how a messy garden can boost biodiversity while saving you time and money.

A lush scene filled with vivid purple and pink flowers thriving amidst abundant greenery, with tall plants stretching up toward the sky, partially covering a wooden fence and a small shed in the background.

Contents

Messy gardens don’t have to be ugly. Fall leaves have rich shades of yellow, brown, and red, adding much-needed color to brown or yellow landscapes. Decaying seed heads provide structure, matching the bare deciduous trees above. When you embrace the messiness, you discover hidden treasures that plants and animals bring to the forefront.

So, what does having a messy landscape entail? Being “messy” in the garden means leaving things be, waste recycling, and leaving plants to do their annual life cycles, creating endless benefits for soil, plants, and animals.

Once you embrace a messy landscape, it’ll be difficult to return to the old ways of gardening. You’ll struggle to deadhead every flower and prune plants that don’t want pruning. If you don’t have to do something, why do it? 

You may instead embrace a few aspects of messiness and blend them with other gardening methods. You can adapt these strategies to fit your normal routine. With time, they’ll become second nature—you’ll save time by not having to do tasks, and you’ll save money by upcycling waste to create free soil amendments.

Enough yapping! Let’s get into it. Here are seven benefits of cultivating a messy garden.

There’s Less Work To Do!

A close-up of brown and golden autumn leaves, gently covering a vibrant green patch of grass, with warm sunlight casting soft shadows, creating a peaceful, early fall ambiance.
Let dead sprouts, stems, and branches hang where they are.

Save your back by avoiding pruning, raking, and leaf blowing! A messy garden embraces the imperfections. Let dead sprouts, stems, and branches hang where they are. They’ll fall off in time and naturally decay. With less pruning comes more time you can spend looking for new plants or perusing seed catalogs.

Avoid leaf blowing or raking to let leaves decay where they fall. Decaying leaves provide a cozy home to insects, larvae, and reptiles. They hide in or burrow into the leaf cover and protect themselves from predators or extreme frosts. When you move giant piles of leaves, you disrupt these animals and threaten their survival. Messy gardens have plenty of leaf piles, leaf mulch, and leaves on the lawn.

If you have a lawn with lots of leaves on top, you can also use a mulch mower to chop them up. The mower will slice them into little pieces that decay easily. They fall in between the grass blades and provide nutrients to lawn soils. Otherwise, let them be! Perennial grasses will return in spring, and annual ones can reseed themselves for next year. 

More Habitats For Wildlife

Dead branches and twigs piled on top of each other in a garden, among dead leaves on the ground.
The debris creates perfect conditions for garter snakes, spiders, and insects.

An easy way to start a messy garden is by leaving stems and seed heads in fall and winter to benefit wildlife. Instead of pruning them, let them stand tall throughout winter snow and rain. Hollow stems are valuable homes for beetles, bugs, and larvae. They crawl inside to enter dormancy, staying in the stems until warm temperatures arrive.

Another simple method is creating a brush pile. Stack branches, plant debris, and leaves into a small pile. The debris creates perfect conditions for garter snakes, spiders, and insects. They’ll hide when they sleep, then come out to eat pests that plague your garden. 

Snails and slugs also like brush piles—they appreciate the cool, shady conditions. Slugs, snails, and insects feed snakes and predatory bugs, who then feed birds and mammals. When you help one animal, you help them all! The only time to avoid creating one is if rats or mice are common in your area.

If you must rake or leaf blow, make a leaf pile with the excess. It’ll slowly transform into leaf mold, a valuable soil amendment. While it decays, it’ll create homes for worms, burrowing insects, and overwintering ladybugs. All organic matter decays in time, so don’t worry about ruining your garden’s aesthetic. It’ll turn into rich, crumbly soil before you know it.

You’re Helping Animals Survive

A Eurasian blue tit sits on a wilted sunflower head while holding a seed with its beak.
A messy garden provides pollen, nectar, and nutritious seeds throughout the year for hungry critters to snack on.

Not only does a messy garden create habitats, but it also benefits hungry animals in need of resources. It provides pollen, nectar, and nutritious seeds throughout the year for hungry critters to snack on. Let your plants do their thing, and water them when they need. That’s it! They’ll do the rest of the work.

One example is deadheading. You cut spent flowers off before they can complete their life cycle. It’s a simple practice to encourage more flowers, yet it’s time-consuming and doesn’t allow plants to create seeds. Seeds are incredibly valuable—they sprout into new plants, but they also feed hungry animals. 

Pruning may cut off wildflowers, especially on perennials and shrubs. Only prune diseased parts to avoid further infections. Otherwise, let plants heal their wounds. When you prune less, you allow more flowers to bloom. The plants won’t have to focus on healing cut wounds and can produce as many sprouts or blossoms as they want.

Clean-cut lawns, pruned perennials, and raked beds are devoid of life. They may look bright and cheery, but they lack the necessary building blocks for biodiversity. It’s difficult to see the benefit of letting things be in winter because most insects and mammals are asleep. Wait for spring, though, and you’ll see a huge boost in wildlife activity.

Feeding Predatory Insects

A bright red ladybug is seen walking along a slender green stem, surrounded by small black aphids, against a blurred, soft yellow-green background.
Your first impulse seeing aphids may be to grab the sprayer, but wait!

These gardens may get pests from time to time. Pests, like any animal, are a part of the ecosystem. They often feed predatory wasps, ladybugs, and beetles that seek them out. Your first impulse seeing aphids may be to grab the sprayer, but wait! A few pests are a part of a healthy garden environment.

It may take longer than a year for predators to show up, meaning you’ll have to battle pests on your own. Avoid using harmful pesticides, including organic ones. Insecticides harm beneficial bugs, too, and some last for a long time on leaves and soil particles. Use non-harmful techniques like water spraying or squishing to remove aphids, white flies, and thrips.

Other ways to prevent pests include row cover, mesh netting, and copper collars. Row cover and mesh netting protect young seedlings when pests are most active. Simply drape your tender ornamentals and vegetables with netting, or place UV-resistant greenhouse plastic over them. Remove the row cover during the day, but leave the netting. You can safely remove either once the pests exit their peak reproductive cycle. 

Copper collars are easy, organic tools that prevent slugs and snails from eating tender seedlings. Dig the collars into the soil an inch or two. Slugs and snails receive a small shock and redivert towards other, less shocking vegetables. In this way, you can embrace the messiness of slugs and snails while keeping your precious plants safe.

Nutrient Upcycling

A close-up view of freshly dug, dirt-covered carrots resting beside a small blue-and-red shovel, with a crate of other vegetables in the background, on rich soil.
Upcycle your waste and create a closed-loop garden where nutrients never escape.

Although labor intensive, composting your garden waste can be delightfully messy and full of benefits! It’s an excellent way to turn kitchen scraps, plant debris, and leaf litter into crumbly, humus-rich soil. Upcycle your waste and create a closed-loop garden, where nutrients never escape. When you throw organic matter away, you let potential soil go to a landfill. Start a simple compost pile instead to make a free soil amendment.

Compost piles need greens and browns, or fleshy plant material and dry organic matter. Combine these two in a ratio of one to three; for every scoop of kitchen scraps or grass clippings, add two or three scoops of dry leaves, twigs, and clippings. Give your pile 50% moisture so it’s like a wrung-out sponge, and turn it once a week. You’ll have soil in a few weeks!

If you’re still confused about composting, learn how to make your own here. This simple guide will take you through the process step by step. It’ll also help you make cold compost, a lazy but simple method for nutrient upcycling

If you’d rather not fuss with compost, you can let debris decay on top of the dirt. This happens naturally in forests, as leaf litter and dead branches decorate the floor. They decay slowly and enrich the soil with nutrients, fungi, and bacteria. Leave the leaves, and let things decompose where they land. Not only is this easy, but it’s also beneficial for soil health and wildlife survival

Letting Nature Take Its Course

Several cut pieces of firewood neatly stacked among dry, brown leaves and twigs on the forest floor, with a shadow of a tree trunk partially visible on the left side.
When you let wood decompose, the carbon remains in your backyard and helps new plants.

Wood is essential for fungi. Fungi like carbon and woody plants are full of it. Remove all the twigs, branches, and stumps from your garden, and you’ll take away valuable habitat space for mushrooms. Instead, leave a few branches on the soil and inspect them in fall, winter, or spring. Cool, moist weather invites mushrooms to pop out of their homes, and you’ll see fruiting bodies up and down decaying wood. 

Wood injects carbon into the soil as it decays, feeding all plant life. Plants, no matter how small or big, have and need carbon. When you let wood decompose, the carbon remains in your backyard and helps new plants. It may take years for large chunks to fully decompose, but they’ll provide habitat space for both mushrooms and tunneling insects while they do. 

If you don’t have lots of wood debris in your yard, you can use wood chips or sawdust to boost carbon levels in the soil. Simply scatter them out throughout the garden, adding extra around woody shrubs and trees. The more wood a species grows, the more carbon it uses, and the more woody mulch it appreciates.

Surprise Volunteers

A scenic, sunlit meadow brimming with white and purple wildflowers, with tall green grass swaying gently, framed by thick trees and shrubs in the distance.
When you leave things be, you allow the magic of pollination and reseeding to occur.

The final benefit of a messy garden is surprise plant volunteers! When you leave things be, you allow the magic of pollination and reseeding to occur. You may find new rose hybrids, funky lettuce varieties, or colorful Swiss chard sprouting! Many garden species reseed when you let them flower, including our tender vegetable crops and ornamental perennials.

The best way to ensure you see surprise volunteers is by letting plants flower and form seeds. Avoid deadheading, and let them look rangy and messy. They’ll drop the seeds when they want to, and the seasons will coax the seedlings into maturity. In time, you’ll have abundance where there used to be bare soil!

Some surprise volunteers may not be welcome, like weeds and invasive species. Ensure you’re letting friendly, non-invasive plants reseed. Pull the weeds regularly to avoid creating extra seeds, and compost them until they completely decompose. Once you remove most weeds, you can let your preferred plants flower and seed at will.

Share This Post
Brown flower heads slouch against a wooden fence, surrounded by fading green foliage.

Gardening Tips

End of Season Tips: Cut Dead Plants or Pull Them Out?

Summers end invites rain, frost, and cool weather that zaps the life out of tender annuals. Your blooming garden may look brown, dreary, and dead this fall—but should you pull out those dying plants, leave them be, or chop them to the ground? Discover what you can do alongside seasoned grower Jerad Bryant.

A picturesque pathway made of stepping stones leading through a well-tended yard, flanked by lush, colorful plants and shrubs, with wooden structures on either side and a background of tall evergreens and soft sunlight.

Gardening Tips

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Clean Up Your Garden This Fall

Fall is a time for refreshing the garden as the cool season begins. But use a light hand—an overabundance of maintenance this time of year detracts from the diverse ecological foundation you’ve created. Autumn naturally provides a wealth of resources to utilize for the good of the future garden and to see it through winter. Join gardening expert Katherine Rowe in the merits of well-founded (well-deserved) less fall cleanup.