Winter Clean-up: Garden Ghost Artemisia - January 2025

One of the 'wins' from last garden season were the three Garden Ghost Artemisia that I planted in the front yard Island Bed along the driveway.  They quickly filled-in/filled-out, provided a nice pop of white to brighten up the bed and were *very useful* in cut flower arrangements.  I bought them from Roy Diblik's nursery up in Wisconsin (Northwind Perennial Farm) and planted them along with a couple of grasses, some annuals and the Korean Maple tree.  

Here's a look at one of the MANY arrangements that I used the Garden Ghost plumes in as filler flowers.

The provide a tiny bit of Winter interest, but they also have stems that help protect the crown of the plants by trapping leaf litter around the base of the woody plants.  Below is a look at the current state of these Garden Ghost Artemisias planted right next to the driveway:

I've talked about it a few times, but between the early snow-fall and the deliberate adoption (at least a little bit more than normal) of the 'leave the leaves' philosophy, this area looks a little messy.  With it being right on the driveway and in our front yard, I'm thinking this is a spot that I can get out and do a tiny bit of winter cleanup.  I'm not talking about removing everything, but rather clipping off some of the tips of the plants and doing a 'chop-and-drop' amend the soil just a little bit.  One of the things about 'chop-and-drop' is that (like 'lazy bed extensions'), time is a critical factor.  

The smaller the 'chop', the quicker the plant material will break down.  While it does, the cut-up plant material provides a little bit of mulch and ground cover.  Last year, I had the full garden mulched with hardwood fines and some arborist chips (in the far back), so this year, I'll probably just do a clean-up.  However, if I follow-up on some of my 'bed extensions' - like the Island Bed plan in this post - I'll need to lay down a fresh layer of mulch on top of those new areas.  That might lead me to doing a full front-yard mulch layer.  I figure that's probably less than ten yards...and not a ton of distance to haul it.  Which...means it might be a DIY job.