As we continue into the future, native gardening has become more and more popular. I saw this trend coming years ago, when I was doing my internship in Minnesota. But I could not expect the delay it has taken to get here. Even when I was a kid growing up in the Smoky Hills of North Central Kansas, I loved native plants. I used to spend hours at a time out on the remnant prairie pasture that my family owned. I still go out there a couple times a year. The beauty, the wildness, the life sustained by rich prairie always mesmerized me.
A lot has changed. But my fascination for native gardening and promoting wildlife (bees, birds, etc.) has not changed. I go to native plant conferences, events, and hike all over Kansas. And I cannot figure out why rural gardeners are not making the change to native plants. Is it because farmers think of native plants as weeds, as they see in their fields? It should be easy to get farmers and other rural living people to design and implement landscaping entered on native plantings. But it is difficult. Maybe, they see natives as the cheap option to a more impressive landscape. After all, if city dwellers have green lawns and well-manicured landscapes, then why cannot I who live in the country have it too?
What is Native Gardening?
The shift has started, but not in most rural areas. But what is native gardening? Focusing on native plantings to encourage healthy landscapes, attract wildlife, and lower maintenance is the key to native gardening. And it comes with the use of native plants. Native plants can be defined as: “Plants which can be found growing wild within a specific region, either a topographic region or an area roughly 150 miles in diameter from your location”.
Native gardening combines native plants, habitat reconstruction, reintroduction of keystone plants, and cultural maintenance together to create a living landscape. It cultivates ecological biodiversity, wildlife management and protection, and the desire to protect pollinators. And surprisingly to many gardeners, there is little maintenance needed, and a lot of enjoyment provided.
How to Get Started
The biggest challenge we native gardeners face is resources. Too few garden centers are growing and selling native plants. Sure, in metropolitan areas such as Kansas City and Minneapolis, MN, there are a plethora of garden centers to choose from selling native plants. But those plants are mostly limited to perennials; not shrubs, trees, and annuals. And while there are many mail order companies, their often get their seeds from out of your region.
The best way to get started in native gardening is to join your state (or local) native plant society, group, or even facebook page. I have been blessed to be a member of the Kansas Native Plant Society, which has been very good at informing members about plant sales, and trips for hiking and learning. Missouri, Nebraska, and Minnesota also all have well-organized groups. And there are books to help.
A list of some of my favorite books on native gardening ideas:
- Attracting Native Pollinators by the Xerces Society
- Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy
- The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden by Roy Diblik
- The Living Landscape by Darke & Tallamy
- The American Meadow Garden by Greenlee & Holt
- Prairie Up by Benjamin Vogt
- The Nature of Oaks by Doug Tallamy
- Planting: A New Perspective by Piet Oudolf
- Planting in a Post-Wild World by Claudia West
There are also blogs (like this one), magazines, and much more to get you started into native gardening.
Looking for Plants
Once you have got your foot in the door of it, you need to think about your space. Where do you live? In the mountains, the desert, the foothills, the coast, the prairie? Or a mix of places? You will want to search for plants to match not only your region, but your local ecosystem and micro-climates. Start by looking at local or region state parks, especially those with some wild areas.
If you are looking for keystone species that are more specific to your county, check out the National Wildlife Federation’s Plant Finder. It is a database with lists of plants and the numbers of lepidopteran (moths and butterflies) species they support. They just give you the plant by Genus name, so you would have to dig deeper to find the right plant. But you can go to Bonap (North American Plant Atlas) and search by Genus, which will give you which species are native in your region, down to the county level. And you can start to compose a list of desired plants from these.
Once you have a list of desirables and keystone species, then you can start looking for companion native plants for them. These are important plants too, they just do not provide support for as many insects, and in turn, birds and other insectivores.
Planning Your Garden
When it comes to planning the native garden, the only wrong way to do it is to put everything in together. You should separate your plant lists into 3 categories: sleepers, creepers, and leapers. Now, these are the terms usually placed together on perennial plants, but as separate categories they work well for natives. Sleepers include slow growing plants such as trees and shrubs, and longer lived perennials like Baptisia, Silphium, and Rudbeckia. Plant sleepers in the first 1 to 3 years.
Creepers are generally groundcovers, grasses, sedges, and other perennials like butterfly milkweed, rattlesnake master, Liatris, Dalea, Lilium, and others. Creepers move or spread quicker than sleepers, and need to be planted in the 2 to 4 year after starting time.
Leapers are fast spreading and growing natives which need to be planted after sleepers and creepers are established. I would not recommend adding most of these until 4 to 6 years later, unless you are ready for some extra maintenance. Examples include most asters, milkweeds, Agastache, Obedient plant, and Salvia.
For the design of the garden spaces, we tend to over-think it, especially for native gardening. They do not need super-structured areas. In fact, its best to create a space where the plants can lean (literally) on each other. Plant them closer than most gardening gurus would suggest and let the seedlings and rhizomes choose where the best spot is. Meadows, woodlands, prairies, savannahs, and mountainsides are good examples of natural ecosystems to imitate.
Maintenance in Native Gardening
In the first few years of your native gardening career, there is some regular, even monthly maintenance needed. Keeping up with undesired plants aka weeds is important. While many of the “weeds” are native, they may not be a fit for the early stages of the garden. Many weeds are thugs in the gardens, or leapers, taking over and spreading quickly. Some native examples are ragweeds, mustards, spurges, and annual sunflowers. If given the chance, they will shade out your desirable natives before they get established.
But after the first couple of years, you can get down to bi-yearly maintenance which usually is just a fall or spring cutback or burn time. I like to burn off my meadow garden and other native areas, or cut high at about 18 inches, leaving stalks for stem-nesting bees and other insects. If you are having trouble with introduced grasses such as brome or timothy, burning can allow them to come back sooner, letting you get in to remove them easier.
Conclusion
Once you begin into native gardening, you will not likely want to stop. If you live on a larger lot or have acreage, you will begin to see an increase in biodiversity around you. Be sure to record as many insects, birds, spiders, and other animals as you see them. And as always, enjoy your garden.
Happy planting!
