I have spent the last year preparing for this– weeding invasives, encouraging the growth of native volunteers, and doing a ton of research. Yesterday I finally took the leap and got my plants! I am so excited to get them in the ground this week.
I keep going back and forth on whether I should plant everything in one area of the yard, or spread them out in two or three places. I'm leaning towards grouping everything together because that's more beneficial for pollinators, right?
Here's everything I got:
2 blue mistflower
1 white yarrow
3 swamp milkweed
3 smooth blue aster
2 wild bergamot
1 purple lovegrass
1 fireworks goldenrod
To anyone else in GA, I highly recommend This Enchanted Garden in Acworth for all your native needs. She spent over an hour giving me a tour of her property (every square inch was covered in native plants!) and giving me advice on what would work best for my needs. It was everything I hoped for and more.
by goblin-fox
4 Comments
My advice is to make bunny / deer cages – they smell new plants and target them immediately. Stick them in the ground with landscape staples so your plants can establish into the winter before being snack’able.
My trunk looks like this every other month during the spring/summer/fall months 😊
I’d say if you are going to group the plants, make sure they all have the same (or overlapping) soil/moisture/light requirements. And consider plant sociability ratings as well: https://www.monarchgard.com/thedeepmiddle/choosing-garden-plants-based-on-sociability
I would group them, as you said it’s probably most beneficial to pollinators, as long as the water needs are relatively similar. I am on year 2 of my native plant journey and still have challenges deciding on placement and I’ve just been telling myself it’s okay, things can always be moved next year! Lol
The hardest part for grouping so far for me has been understanding when things bloom, it seems like such a range and in practice, didn’t quite match what is “normal.” So despite lots of planning, I had 1 bed that was almost entirely dead by late July except for one single lonely boneset lol
Good luck with everything! I have the same goldenrod and it’s so lovely now in it’s second year!
IMO I’d plant them all in their own spot where you can then, as it fits your budget and all that, plant MORE of each species to create big masses of each of the species you got! Thats how I can my start a few years ago when I moved into a new house, planted like 15 or 20 species of native flowers, grasses, and shrubs to attempt best placement of each species, and then since then I’ve grown more of the species from seed, bought more plugs online and native plant sales, and filled in each of those spaces to go from 1 or 2 plants to 5, 7, or like 30 (mountin mints)
Slow and steady wins the race!
Also, tell me more about Enchanted Gardens! Not seeing them on Gmaps but I have a few preferred natibe plant places and would love to have another. Can you send me address or any other info? Marietta GA here!