Landscaping the yard of your dreams is hard work, but when it pays off, the feeling is indescribable. “I might be obsessed with the view from my kitchen,” said one happy homeowner after their long process of renovating.
The poster doesn’t note where they are located, but their garden is chock full of flowers, tall grasses, and leafy shrubs, like straight out of a magazine. “That is beautiful,” one reader of the subreddit r/NativePlantGardening approved.
Photo Credit: Reddit
“The smell of mountain mint is filling the yard right now,” the green thumb mentioned in a comment, alongside a photo of a small visitor. An eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly, somewhere along its long migration, came to rest in their garden.
This is the cherry on top of gardening with native plants. You don’t have to make a huge effort to attract birds or butterflies; native plants will naturally do that for you.
The plants that have evolved over thousands of years in your region have developed relationships with other birds, insects, and mammals over this time. This is called mutualism, and is a sign of a healthy, biodiverse ecosystem. Planting trees, flowers, and vegetables that are native to your region helps these other members of the food chain thrive.
“I feel like Snow White while I’m working in the kitchen — birds, butterflies, bees flying around. Chipmunks, anoles, skinks darting in and out of stone walls,” wrote the OP. “My own little paradise.”
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“Please excuse my mulch bags. Planting is still (always) in progress,” said the OP. Though the gardener’s work is never done, it can be a lot easier when gardening with native plants. This concept is called rewilding, and by taking a more hands-off approach, native plants will flourish on their own, with very little extra watering or fertilizing.
For this gardener, much of the project involved removing invasive/non-native plants and selecting the perfect combination of native plants that would encourage biodiversity: “Almost the entire backyard was dug up and redone from November ’23 to March ’24 … My landscape architect helped me create my vision — a certified wildlife habitat with an amazing outdoor living space to enjoy the critters.”
But you don’t need a landscape architect; rewilding and creating your dream yard can start with something as simple as putting off mowing for a month or two to see what native plants are already growing in your yard.
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