10/06/2026
Leave the stems of your perennials until late winter. Pollinators overwinter in them.
Before you cut the garden back this fall, snap one dead bee balm stem and look inside. It is hollow, and a coneflower stem has a soft, spongy center.
That is a nursery. NC State Extension says about a quarter of North Carolina's native bees nest in cavities, many of them in plant stems. Tufts University's pollinator team explains that a mother bee lays an egg, packs a ball of pollen and nectar beside it, walls it off, and repeats until the stem is full. The young spend the winter inside and come out the next growing season.
So leave the stems standing through winter. In late winter, cut them back to between 6 and 18 inches, which opens the tops for next year's bees, and leave that stubble for two years. NC State says new growth hides it by early summer. đ
