In order to start a garden design, it’s useful to follow these 6 steps before you head to the nursery, buying everything that you fall in love with only to come home and wonder a. where to put them, b. if they look good together but most importantly, c. if they add valuable ecological functions to your garden habitat. Believe me, I've been there. 

 

Step 1: Assess the site —

Study the site's solar aspect, prevailing winds, ultimate growth height & width and annual rainfall to find suitable plant species, and then consider bloom times and plant community colours. Put your design down on paper (or use one of our handy planting plans).

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Site Assumptions
Doing a site analysis is critical to proper plant selection and helping reduce management over time by
place plants correctly on the site and among one another. For this plan we are assuming a rather level
grade or slight slope away from the house, as well as a clay-loam soil that is moderately compacted. The
front and back yards are in fairly pristine tall fescue lawn and our goal is to work with what we have to
reduce expense and labor.

 

Step 2: Site Prep —

Remove existing vegetation by sod-cutting, smothering or ‘lasagna’ layering

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Preparation Method
There are many strategies to employ when converting a lawn to a designed meadow garden, and each
have their pros and cons; choosing the one that syncs up best with your ability, pocket book, and time
frame is critical. For this site we applied one treatment of glyphosate, broadcast 1.5” of shredded wood
mulch (front), then planted directly into the ground. This method results in less site disturbance and fewer
weeds while letting the dead lawn add organic matter as it breaks down. For the back yard we scalped the
lawn after spraying, raked it out, then broadcast Bouteloua gracilis seed directly into the dead lawn.

 

Step 3: Plant Selection — 

Purchase plants from local native plant nurseries,  native plant sales or mail-order native plant nurseries, or rescue plants from, with permission, from prairie remnants in danger of destruction or collect seed, with permission, from locally established prairies. If natives of your area are hard-to-find or unavailable, ensure your plant selections are suitable to the specific zones of garden.

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Design Considerations
The planting under the trees, or within the dripline -- as well as the north foundation bed -- is composed
of shade tolerant and woodland edge species using two sedge as the matrix /living green mulch /
groundcover. The rest of the landscape employs full-sun species using Bouteloua species as the matrix. It’s
a good idea to try and blend the sun / shade matrix plants in the area around the tree’s dripline. Place
matrix plants at every grid line intersection. Further, you may want a taller matrix in the sunny areas, so
one strategy would be to swap out the Bouteloua gracilis with Bouteloua curtipendula, and (for out front)
the Bouteloua curtipendula with Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem).
You may also find that the over number of forb specimens are not enough and you’d like more, or that
over time you’d like to increase the diversity and structure and bloom succession. There’s plenty of room
to do that in the groundcover layer in both sun and shade areas.

 

Step 4: Source Your Plants Small & Save Money —

Typically most people want immediate gratification but if you can temper that impatience and wait until the ‘wet season’ (autumn here in the northwest, spring in drier areas) and counter-intuitively, choose smaller plants rather than larger gallon plus sizes, studies have shown that the small ones will catch up quickly, and are much less expensive

 

Step 5: Phenology —

Record your observations as the garden grows: garden journal, blog, instagram, etc this helps you recognise all the stages of a plant’s growth & and encourages you as you see the garden sleep, creep and then leap!

 

Step 6: Maintain the site — 

Hopefully you’ve hopefully planted thickly in layers & included suitable drought-tolerant plants, and it’s always good to water the first year or so until they become established & always remove invasive species

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​Management
During the first year weed control is critical. We expect mostly annuals like foxtail and crabgrass which can
quickly outpace the native plant plugs and look gangly, so deadheading them is important for aesthetics;
however, since these are annual species, there’s no need to pull which disturbs soil and brings up more
weed seeds to germinate. Since we are planting so densely, on 6-12 inch centers or seeding, the garden
will start to out compete most weed species in years 2-3 and weed control will be much less of an issue.
Each spring the landscape in the sunny areas should be mowed down to 6 inches around April 1, while the
shade areas with sedge are left alone.
Watering schedules in clay-loam in southeast Nebraska vary based on weather and planting time of year,
but generally a 60-90 minute aerial or overhead soaking (not drip hoses) right after planting, followed by
a 45 minute watering 2-3 times per week for 2-3 weeks gets us off to a good start. If fall planted, watering
after the initial period isn’t usually needed, but in spring we suggest a weekly watering of 60 minutes for
a few more weeks as well as a few times during a prolonged drought of several weeks (which is common
in July, August, or even September). Watering in year two is often not required. Sown areas will need
consistent surface soil moisture for the first 3-5 weeks to germinate the Bouteloua seed.