I’m very interested and dare I say, I think I’d like to turn our old horses pasture into a native flower garden for pollinators(and colors) instead of just, random jumbled mess.
Accurate enough measurement was 173ft by 105ft, with several 70 year old ish Oak Trees(they’ll be staying).
So far, I’ve identified 18 plants most of which are already native or “cultivated / introduced” (I can post in comments if wanted).
My current “plan” is to bush-hog the existing plants down then mow it even shorter. Then I think I’ll spread some top soil/compost then. *Tilling has been replaced with chemical use to kill initial plants*(which I’m not fond of)(studies and Reddit say it isn’t actually bad)
I have yet to do any in depth research regarding which plants would be preferred as the area I’m in is NC-7B with the clay-ish soil.
Based on the trees it seems as though they’ll be 3 sections : Full Sun, partly sun, shade – the shaded areas is lower and does tend to have more lingering water.
– I’ve attached pictures of the field I’m talking about with the last picture is a quick sketch of said field(not to scale) with the pictures related markers for directions.
How manageable/(accurate) would this all be and still be a “low effort” task?
by DeathByLego34
3 Comments
How big is your pasture?
How is your moisture?
Pls walk the area for a month or two and note all kinds of plants you see. I really worry for invasives in your area – depending on what you have you can do a large seed casting project.
Pls consider abandoning till unless you find a good reason to. Most of research on tilling show that it is not good for whatever lives in the soil, including friends that help native plants establish.
So many of native plants do just fine in clay
The nice part about natives is tilling isn’t really needed. Just use glyphosate or solarize with tarp or smother with mulch. Something to get ground bare and then put plugs in bare spots. Keep weeds away from plugs. Rinse and repeat. Winter sowing with milk jugs is going to be cheapest and easiest way to get enough seedlings. Also I wouldn’t do it all at once. Take a bite size space at first and make that your test run. You’ll learn so much in first season that will save future you lots of headaches. Also this will take your lifetime. So don’t rush or else you’ll quickly get overwhelmed. Being consistent is key. Treat it like a marathon. 10 mins of weeding a day is better than an hour once a week. You need to learn about your land and you can only do that by being out in it.
For the part with full sun, consider asking over at r/meadowscaping. There were some great posts a while back that involved land in NC.