10/30/2026
Leave your garden as it is. Next spring, you will be glad you did!
A lot of next year's bees are inside this year's dead stems.
Right through winter, hollow and pithy stems across a garden are holding:
- Small carpenter bee larvae sealed in sunflower stalks
- Mason bee cocoons plugged with mud in raspberry canes
- Leafcutter bee cells wrapped in leaf pieces inside rose stems
- Beetle larvae in pithy stems that birds hunt all winter
A stem cut before April goes out with the bees in it. They can't move; the stem is where they are.
🐝 What to do instead:
- Leave stems standing, at least twelve to eighteen inches tall
- Where tidying is a must, bundle the cut stems and lay them horizontally in a garden corner — the bees inside still emerge
- New growth comes up through the old by June, so the "mess" is short-lived
The stems look finished. They're occupied. 🍂
