Imagine me, reader with a very smug expression on my face. Today, I am vindicated.
Each Autumn, I grit my teeth and withstand the overwhelming urge to tidy the garden up as it slowly lapses into tatty grey winteriness. I grit my teeth even harder at the occasional disapproving glances received from passers-by looking over the garden fence... I imagine their thoughts - "Bit of a mess, eh? I would have cut those perennials down weeks ago!" But today, it was all worth it to see a desperately hungry chaffinch fly down to the standing flower stalks of our Jerusalem Sage plants, and delicately winkle a seed out of the rather elegant dried seedhead.
I haven't seen this behaviour before, although we have often had flocks of goldfinches taking seed from standing teasels in the winter, and I have heard reports of bullfinches taking evening primrose seeds as well.
Looking out the window now, at 5 inches of soft, deep snow, it strikes me that Nature isn't stupid. The Jerusalem Sage seedheads stand beteen 3 and 4 feet tall, meaning the stored seeds are well above the smothering snow, meaning the poor hungry little birds can actually access them.
Of course, my untidy habits in the autumn garden benefit more than just seed-eating birds - the autumn leaves never lie for long, as the earthworms are quick to drag them underground in neat little spirals - perhaps you've seen these in your garden? The leaves are food for the earthworms, but the side effects of this process mean that the nutrients are recycled right back into the soil from which they first came. And the thick blanket of perennial growth over the borders forms an insulating layer that means that many insects and invertebrates are much more likely to survive the winter. As these creatures are often the first few links in the food chain, they will then kick-start the garden ecosystem in the spring.
So, gardeners, deferring the big autumn tidy-up until early spring is one of the easiest things you can do to improve the lives of the creatures that share your little patch of land.