What's left of the Marigolds

My garden is a mess... and so it will remain until all risk of frosts pass.

It's not that I don't care for the garden. Totally the opposite. What I have is a wildlife garden. Although I do dig up a few delicate bulbs and take a few cuttings, most of the plants multiply by self seeding. I do a light tidy up of some of the ugly stems but leave as much as I dare, lest my neighbours complain. I firmly believe that nature does most of the work for me.

What seems like a gardeners nightmare is effectively a safe haven for insects and food for the birds. It sounds quite "scottish" but why clear it all up and then buy mulch in the spring? The rotting vegetation is slowly broken down and dragged underground by the worms to feed the soil.
The birds fossick around in the seed heads, some for the seeds themselves and others for insects which overwinter in the comparative safety of old stems.

These marigold seed heads are still intact with no frost to speak of to flatten them this winter.

Come spring a new garden will appear, once again, from apparent barren land. All I will have to do is pull out some excess plants to pass on to friends , eliminate those weeds I don't want and rearrange a few to positions of my liking.

It's certainly not manicured and not a garden for most peoples taste, but it is a place of beauty in the summer. That is, will be... if I can stop a young dog digging holes all over it!