Your Perennial Garden: What plants to cut back or leave until spring.

Before winter, remove all diseased debris and broken branches from your flower garden.  Discard any remaining annuals.

Recommended perennials to cut back in fall are:  bearded iris; monarda (bee balm) unless it is new growth; gaillardia (blanket flower); nepeta (catmint); columbine; daylily (now or spring); bush clematis; helianthus; hollyhock; ligularia (now or spring); penstemon; peony; and helianthus.

These perennials are recommended to leave for spring cutting:  asclepias (butterfly weed); chrysanthemums (mammoth mums); and heuchera (coral bells).

Birds will appreciate it if you leave echinacea (cone flowers) and rudbeckia (black-eye Susans) or any other seed producing plants standing through winter.