I'm all about finding easy ways to garden, like reusing tin cans to create plant pots or scattering mixed seeds to create a 'chaos garden', so when I heard about the 'chop and drop' method, I just had to give it a try.
But, what does it mean? 'Chop and drop' is as simple as it sounds. You chop (or cut) the dead plants around your backyard and let them drop where they stand, leaving them to become a natural, free fertilizer creating nutrient-rich mulch for new growth to flourish.
It may sound messy, and it is, but it'll save you a lot of time when you're in the garden. Here's how it works.
How does the 'chop and drop' method work?
The 'chop and drop' method encourages you to chop your plants and let them drop to the ground. What it doesn't want you to do is head over to your compost heap or yard waste bin and discard of them there. Cutting out this part of your gardening chores will save you a lot of time.
As TikTok user, Grower Of All Things aka @detriarochelle, demonstrates to her over 150k followers, the 'chop and drop' method is what she has used to make clearing our her vegetable garden super quick and easy. Not only that, she's creating an excellent space ready for her vegetables to grow again. The same method would work for flowers, if that's what suits you.
By letting the plants fall to the ground, they become a fertilizer that's completely free, creating food for your soil that you'd otherwise have to pay for. Detria also explains: "Leaving the roots intact feeds the soil underneath the surface and then the dead plant material on top of the surface will break down and feed the soil further resulting in rich, nutrient-dense soil that'll be great for the garden."
She adds that if anything is diseased, you should get rid of it. If not, just let it fall to the ground where it is.
How it went
Inspired by all the posts I'd seen across social media, I headed into my garden ready to embrace the 'chop and drop' method. And there's a few things I can takeaway from giving it a try.
I headed to a patch of soil where I grow a variety of flowers that needed reviving and instead of doing what I usually do when deadheading and placing all the dead flowers into a basket ready to take over to my compost bin, I just let them drop to the ground.
At first, this felt very unnatural and I was mildly concerned about how messy it would look. But, I also knew that we were about to have a fair amount of rain and that moisture would help the dead flowers decompose and work their way into the soil – and it did.
For a brief amount of time, it also did look pretty messy, but I was determined to stick with it. It's still a waiting game I'm playing to see how the flowers will grow up out of the soil that's been left behind. But, the mess has quickly disappeared and I feel pretty positive about what it's provided to my soil. I'm looking forward to seeing the results!
