If you really are devoted to gardening, you should be aware that cleaning of your garden during the fall has more to do with the aesthetics of gardening and sometimes for the reasons of sanitation of the garden. It’s not that plants wanted it that way. So, don’t worry if you had no time to cut off peony leaves, remove the tops off the mums after they got frozen or cut back the delphiniums. In the end, if they grow wild the tops would continue to stay and the plants would still live to grow.

Unless they get diseased why not put them in the compost pit and let the germs work overtime and produce organic substances for being used in the garden in future. Else, destroy the diseased tops by all means. Some people sort of make a clean slate of their beds by taking out roots and ripping the plants away, not realizing that such a cleaning does more harm than good

After you have cleaned your garden by a leaf blower and dumped all the leaves and trash that had been collected all this while into the compost pit, spray some insecticide or neem oil on the cleaned area. It helps in two ways. It does away with most of the sow bugs (pill bugs) and leaves your compost pit free from their attack. The other benefit is keeps away earthworms that wipe out a lot of organic materials. If you fall short of leaves, visit the nearest sawmill to get sawdust or wood shavings to mix them with your garden trash. That way it works out much cheaper than going to buy peat moss.

One last tip for the lazy gardener who is in the habit of leaving wheelbarrow or garden cart in the rain! If you would simply drill a couple of quarter inch holes at its bottom, the drain water would drain out, leaving the contents of you vehicle washed and clean and the earth gets a bit richer thru the minerals that were washed down the vehicle.