Who else is picking up piles of leaves? One of my Begonias has dropped more leaves than it seemed like it had to begin with. Benigo. New one are coming in but I should have removed a lot of leaves before I brought it in. It did the same thing last year.

Some plants are just messy. Which are your messy plants?

My gorgeous TG cactus is now a pile of dry spent flowers.
Brugs are telling me what they don't have the energy to keep.
Tradescantia usually get so ugly over winter for me and have some dry leaves.

No doubt!! That is the primary negative for the holiday cacti. Those gorgeous blooms hit the ground when finished.

Totally right about Brugs! I only keep cuttings over winter and have learned to cut off all but the top 2-3 leaves when I cut the branches I want to keep. All of the other leaves will be on the floor within 2 weeks. The roots are hardy here but the above-ground part gets ruined. Yesterday was the day for that here this year. Gorgeous blooms, now frozen and ruined.

Trads do the same thing here but the marcescent leaves are at least less messy, waiting to be manually removed.

I should also mention Dracaena marginata (dragon tree.) I wish I had a nickel for every one of those leaves I've plucked off of the floor over the decades! I could buy a new car.

I won't even mention boston fern cuz who's crazy enough to fight that? Not me.

You are smart to minimize the losses. Nobody likes having to strip the big healthy leaves before bringing inside (Plumeria too, etc) but even more , nobody likes picking them up off the floor inside.

A big cane begonia Sophie Cecile?is tossing a leaf here and there. But it's in 'maintenance mode' and drops them into its own pot.

I have a small leafed coleus in a pot it somehow hates, and that's dropping leaves. I'm not sure what happened. But young rooted pieces in their own small pot are behaving.

With a cat, I don't have a D marginata- he'd chew on it. But, yeah.

I get a lot of dropped Coleus leaves too. Plectranthus hadiensis is determined to yield its own little compost pile. I am realizing how many pots have some of that spilling over one side...!

Crown of thorns (Euphorbia) never seems to drop a leaf while outside but I'm always afraid of overwatering it so I think it gets more dry while it's inside for winter because it throws down a few leaves per week. But the blooms keep coming so it still seems cheery enough.