Grow Native Plants in Your Yard

I'm so excited to teach you Gardenary's method for creating a beautiful, easy-to-maintain native plant garden. I think everybody should have a native plant space, but it's especially important for those of you with kitchen gardens.

If you're growing delicious, nutritious plants, then every pest around is going to want a bite. Instead of freaking out and reaching for the sprays, you can work with nature by growing some native plants that welcome local wildlife into your garden. Why is that desirable? Well, these newcomers will balance out the little ecosystem that is your garden (read: take care of those pests for you).

And if you place native plants around your edible garden, they can also serve as a natural barrier to keep out larger pests like deer. Sounding pretty good so far?

Native Plant Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of planting native is that these plants are already adapted to growing in your climate, which means they're going to grow and thrive with very little help from you. They're perfectly happy in your native soil, and they typically don't need supplemental water because they're used to your area's rain averages.

Because these plants are adapted to your local climate, pollinators and other wildlife are already adapted to them. And that makes them a really important source of food and shelter.

Every day, we are losing more and more natural habitats and native plant spaces to development. It's critical that we keep these native plants around and make sure there are food sources for our most beneficial insects and birds.

By creating a native plant and pollinator-friendly garden space, you are literally feeding the wild. You're creating a healthy ecosystem that benefits your backyard, your city, your community, and beyond.

The one downside is that it can be hard to find plants that are truly native to your area. The closest native plant nursery to me is an hour away, and you have to make an appointment to shop there. That's why most native plant spaces are really a mix of native plants, flowering plants that are good for our pollinators, and ornamental grasses that still make good habitats. The goal is to have at least a couple plants native to your continent, if not region, if not specific area.

Fortunately, native plants are garnering more attention recently, so it'll only become easier to source them.

I hope you're inspired to create a native plant space in your own garden this season! Let's start off by looking at all the wonderful plants you can grow in your garden.

What to Plant in Your Native Garden

One of the goals when selecting your plants is to have a large variety. That helps ensure that bloom times are staggered so that there's always some kind of food for our bees and butterflies and songbirds from the start of spring through the arrival of winter. It's also a great idea to pick flowering plants with different flower shapes and colors to appeal to different types of pollinators.

I like to group plants by their plant families to help us better understand their growth habit and merits. Here are a few of the best families to grow in your native plant space.

The Mint Plant Family

The first plant family to consider for your native space is one you're probably already familiar with if you have an herb garden or kitchen garden, and that's the Lamiaceae plant family, or mint family. This family includes garden favorites like rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, lavender, and basil, all of which do great in the native plant space.

Not all of the plants in this family are native to the US, but they're beautiful, drought resistant, very easy to grow in the landscape, and extremely pollinator friendly. The flowers and, in some cases, the leaves provide food for some of our best pollinators in the garden.

Let's look at some of my favorite plants to grow in this family in addition to those main culinary herbs. These are perennial herbs that you can plant once and enjoy for years. They also all have pretty strong fragrances, which—huge bonus—make them deer resistant!

Bee Balm

Bee balm, aka wild bergamot, is very appropriately named. It's a bee magnet! Hummingbirds and butterflies also adore the tubular flowers that come in bright red, purple, pink, white, and lavender. Bee balm is native to North America.

Pineapple Sage

These plants have beautiful little red nectar-filled flowers that are perfect for hummingbird beaks. Keep in mind that these plants can grow quite large.

Anise Hyssop

This is, hands down, my favorite flowering herb in this family. It produces gorgeous little purple flower spikes that pull in all the pollinators. The leaves look just like mint, and you can actually harvest them to brew your own anise hyssop tea (if you like that licorice flavor). Anise hyssop is native to the mid-Atlantic and northeast states.

Lemon Balm

Lemon balm also looks a lot like mint but it grows a little more upright and has slightly more yellowy leaves. It produces little flowers that aren't very noticeable for us but super attractive to pollinators. You can harvest lemon balm leaves for tea, as well.

Germander

This herb has pretty little pink flowers that the bees just adore. Plus, it's native to North America.

Salvia

Salvia looks similar to anise hyssop but typically has more purply-blue flowers. Again, you get those gorgeous tubular flowers that are so wonderful for bees and butterflies.

The Aster Plant Family

This next plant family is also familiar to those of you who kitchen garden. The Asteraceae family gives us all our lettuces, but for the native plants garden, we'll focus on its flowering plants that are beloved by wildlife.

This family includes annual flowers that are super easy to grow from seed, as well as hardy perennial flowers, including many different daisy varieties. My favorite annuals are marigolds, zinnias, and sunflowers, which are especially great for birds, bees, and butterflies. But I'm going to focus on native perennials that will come back year after year since there are several great options in this family.

Coreopsis

Also called tickseed, coreopsis sends up yellow daisy-like flowers. Make sure you get a perennial variety if you want your plant to come back next year.

Rudbeckia

Also known as black-eyed Susan, rudbeckia is a super low maintenance and beautiful plant. The center of each flower is basically a neon sign to attract pollinators.

Echinacea

This is a must-grow flower! Cone flowers like echinacea and rudbeckia tend to flower a little bit later in the season. There are many different types of echinacea out there, so see if you can find ones that are native to your specific area.

Yarrow

I would never put yarrow inside a raised bed because it expands so much every year, but it's wonderful for a native plant garden. Yarrow produces dainty little yellow flowers that bees and butterflies love. Check before you buy a variety to make sure it's not considered invasive in your area.

Goldenrod

This one looks a little different from the other aster flowers, and it's great for adding some texture to your space. It's also useful to help you extend your overall bloom time. You'll enjoy yellow flowers well after most other flowering perennials have faded.

The Milkweed Family

The Apocynaceae family, or Asclepias, is a smaller bunch that includes all of the milkweed flowers. These plants secrete a milky substance that's toxic to us and other animals when you break a stem. Caterpillars, especially the ones that become monarch butterflies, love milkweed. So milkweed is definitely a plant that you want to have included in your native plant space.

Do your research to find out which milkweed is native to your area. When I lived in the Chicago area, we actually planted something called swamp milkweed. It had bright pink flowers that looked very different from the standard orange and red milkweed.

The Grass Plant Family

Another plant family you'll want to include is the Gramineae family. Grasses tend to grow rather tall and send up beautiful feathery plumes. Native grasses are important because they offer shelter for wildlife. Animals will often burrow underneath the grassy area of my native plant space to hide and raise young.

Visually, grasses lend height and a beautiful softness to your landscape. They sway in the wind, so your space is always moving.

Grasses include more ornamental grasses, plus things we typically grow for consumption (think rye, millet, even corn). I recommend looking up grasses native to your area. You'll typically find some variation of bluestem grass, muhly grass, and switchgrass.

During the winter, your grass plants will turn brown and die back. Leave the plants as they are—trust me, it'll be beautiful! As soon as the weather starts to warm each spring, you'll get fresh blades of grass.

The Apiaceae Plant Family

Another plant family to consider adding will also be familiar if you grow your own vegetables, and that's the Apiaceae, or carrot, plant family. Plants you might consider growing in your native plant space are dill, cilantro, parsley, and fennel.

While most of these plants aren't native, they're super pollinator-friendly, especially when they flower. Their dainty little flowers are basically wildlife magnets, and the leaves are important food sources for particular butterflies (like dill for swallowtail caterpillars).

These plants grow more upright, so they don't take up a lot of space, but they add a lot in beauty.

Others

A couple more of my favorites are creeping phlox in the Polemoniaceae family (great for ground cover) and Veronica (AKA speedwell) from the plantain family. I also love to grow trumpet vine from the bigonias family on an arch trellis.

This gives you a starting off point when you're selecting plants for your garden, but there are so many other plant options you can include. A lot of it will depend on where you live. Your job is to do some homework and find out what's native to your particular region.

Because I'm unconventional, I also love to add some vegetables that don't need raised bed space to my native plant and pollinator garden. I've often got rhubarb, potatoes, broccoli—you name it. If you add a sturdy trellis to your space, you could even grow fruiting plants like muscadines, blackberries, and raspberries.

Sourcing Plants for Your Garden

Since many of the plants you'll grow in your native plant garden are perennials, it's worth it to buy small plants, in most cases. Head to a local nursery rather than a big box store. You're more likely to find: one, native plants; two, employees knowledgeable about native plants; and three, plants grown without a bunch of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Even then, it can be hard to find out if plants are native to your area. You may find yourself standing at the nursery and googling plant names. If you can find plants that are native to your particular subregion, great. Otherwise, go with plants that are resilient, easy to care for, drought-tolerant, etc. The last thing you want is something that will need a lot of attention from you or resources to maintain it.

3 Garden Design Options

Before you consider the plant layout for you space, classify the types of plants you want to grow as small, medium, and large. Keep large plants near the back so that they don't shade plants that need sun or interrupt the view of other parts of the garden.

Other than that, there really are no rules for this planting setup. You get to be the artist. Here are just a couple overall notes for the different garden styles to help you achieve the look you're going for.

Cottage Style

Plant in groups of 3 to 4 instead of rows if you want your garden to look like something out of a Jane Austen movie. I like to make triangles with each type of plant. As you go, mix and match your groupings, so have a triangle of grass here, flowers here, and small plants there.

The small groupings make all the difference as different plants mature and fade throughout the year. You'll really notice the various shapes, sizes, colors, and textures, and that's what gives your garden space this cottage feel.

Formal Garden

If you're looking for your native plant space to feel more formal, you want to build in structure by considering the mature height and growth habit of the plants you'll be including. I recommend planting in rows. You could do a row of grasses at the back, then tall flowering plants, and finally smaller flowers and herbs in the front. This tiered effect will appear more formal.

You might also want to opt for more uniformity in your plants—one type of grass, a couple types of flowers, and just a few herb varieties. Typically, the fewer variations in color and texture that you have, the more formal a garden feels.

The downside is, of course, less variety, but you'll have a beautiful space that doesn't take on that wild, unkept look that some native plant spaces have.

Totally Wild

The last option is basically to go in with no formal structure or organization. No rows. No groups. Just here-and-there planting. Almost all the plants would be planted in singularity, with little attention paid to their growth habit, size, shape, or color. For my own garden, my focus was on spreading pops of color throughout and then having something that makes a big impact in each corner.

The effect is to take your eyes on a rollercoaster ride through your garden space. Here's a bee balm plant, there a pineapple sage, and over there are some muscadines growing up an arch trellis. And wait, is that garlic? It's one surprise right after the other.

Pro Tip

Even though there are no rules to native plant garden design, I do recommend thinking about the way nature works. If you take a walk through a national park, a state park, or even just your neighborhood park, you'll notice that plants love growing all mixed up and close together. Try to mimic that as you're setting up your native plant space. Plant with the goal that in a short period of time, you won't be able to see much soil. This helps conserve the nutrients and the water in your space. It also gives more little spots for wildlife to hang out.

Of course, if you're growing things that are going to spread, give them plenty of room. But it's also okay to interplant and have things that are there for a short period of time and then move plants around as they spread and multiply.

I have a lot of fun with my native plant space. I like to experiment with it, and as I've said, your space doesn't have to be 100 percent native plants. Let go of any urge to follow the rules when it comes to designing this space.

Yes, you want to be sure to include some essential native plants like milkweed and grasses. But other than that, you have license to let loose. You'll learn so much by watching how everything works together in this exciting new planting space.

More Design Tips

Tip #1: Consider Year-Round Beauty

Native plant spaces can be beautiful 12 months out of the year if you take into consideration not just what a plant looks like in season, but out of season, as well. Research what each plant will look like in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. Even if a plant isn't an evergreen, it could still have really nice structure to it during the coldest months (assuming you don't cut it back).

Tip #2: Pick a Color Scheme

Consider both the leaf color (is it more lime green or dark green?) and the flower color of plants you're considering. Try to select complementary colors (purple and yellow, blue and orange, red and green) or stick with cool tones (blues and purples) or warm tones (reds, oranges, and yellows).

Tip #3: Consider Texture

I love to have a broad mix of textures in the garden—wide leaves and curled leaves and feathery plumes. If you're going for something that feels a little less wild, then scale down the different textures.

Native Plant Garden Elements

Let's talk about the key elements that you might consider having for your native plant space garden. These structures ensure your space is not just beneficial to the environment, but also beautiful and functional.

In-Ground Bed

The best location for your bed will be a spot in your yard that is relatively flat and receives full sun. If you have a kitchen garden, I recommend surrounding your kitchen garden with in-ground native plant space. Mine runs the entire perimeter of my kitchen garden, save for a couple pathways.

You can make your native plant garden a little wider than a raised-bed garden because you won't need to tend it nearly as often. The best width for your garden bed is between 3 and 5 feet. Keep your planting area to 3 feet wide if you'll only be able to work in the garden from one side. That's about as far as you can reach without stepping into your garden. If you'll be able to access it from two sides (maybe from your lawn and from your kitchen garden), then you can stretch it to 4 or 5 feet.

Vertical Structures

You can add vertical interest to your space with a trellis for a vining plant, a bird bath, or a fountain. Water features especially are great so that wildlife can take a quick dip or drink.

A Border

If you want to keep weeds and grass from creeping into your space, surround your garden with some type of border, whether that's with stones, bricks, or plastic, rubber, or metal edging. This border will keep your space looking overall tidier as your plants start to fill in. I use metal edging to separate both my kitchen garden (with its gravel pathways) from my native plant space and my native plant space from my yard.

Another way to divide your native plant space from your lawn is by adding a natural border with something like mondo grass or a small evergreen plant.

Pathways

Pathways are important so that you can move around without stepping on your plants or compacting the soil. They're also a great way to invite guests to come inside your space and enjoy a little nature. These spaces aren't just for wildlife—they're for people too!

Step One

Prepare the Garden Area

The good news is, this is the simplest type of garden to set up because you're working with nature here. Native plants don't have any special soil requirements, so you can plant right in the ground.

Start off by using stakes and string to mark the entire perimeter of the space you’ll be using for the native plants garden.

If that area includes lawn, you have two options. You can use a tool like a sod cutter or hula hoe to remove existing grass and vegetation inside the space. Or you can leave the grass and build your garden on top of it using a process called sheet mulching, or the lasagna method.

To sheet mulch, you'll first use a weed eater to cut the grass down to soil level. Then, lay down cardboard over the entire space. Cover the cardboard with layers of organic matter like compost and leaves. Finish it off with a 3- to 6-inch-thick layer of topsoil. You can plant in the sheets right away or give the layers some time to break down and turn into soil.

Either way, you want your space to be pretty level, so transfer topsoil from high places to bring up low spots.

Step Two

Add Garden Edging

Install whatever material you're using for the border around the garden space. (Follow these steps.)

If you haven't already added some topsoil and compost to the surface of the bed, do so now. It's also the time to add mulch if you'd like. Personally, I'm not a fan of mulch in my own native plant space. I rely on the plants themselves to shade the soil and retain moisture on hot days.

Step Three

Add Plants

The best time to plant perennials in your native garden is the early spring or fall so that your plants have at least 6 to 8 weeks to get established before the heat of summer or the harshness of winter. I also like to plant on an overcast day when there's rain in the weekly forecast so that nature covers my watering duty.

You don't have to be too precious about the kinds of holes you dig for these hardy plants. They don't need extra room to stretch their delicate roots out from side to side like annual plants. I do a minimal amount of digging—just a hole as deep and wide as the nursery pot.

Step Four

Scatter Seeds

If you'll be growing annual plants in your native space, as well, you can make planting really easy by mixing seeds with some coarse sand and then scattering them about. Use a hand rake to lightly cover them up so that birds can't eat them.

Perennials like anise hyssop are pretty easy to grow from seed, but you'll want to get those seeds in the ground at least 2 to 3 weeks before your average last frost date in the spring so that they can spend some time in the cold (it helps with germination).

Step Five

Water Your Garden

For the first two weeks after planting something in your native plant space, water every day or every other day, especially if it's warm outside. This is the critical time when those plants need to get their roots nice and settled so they have a healthy start.

How to Care for Your Native Plant Garden

The whole point of this space is to be as easy and low maintenance as possible. So really, the amount of tending your native plant garden will require compared to your kitchen garden or even ornamental beds is minimal. Your only real tasks involve occasionally watering, weeding, and pruning. No fertilizing required.

Watering

After those first two weeks, you really don't need to supplement water to this garden space unless you see particular plants suffering (leaves wilting or turning brown and brittle). True native plants, after all, should be extremely resilient. Many are drought-tolerant, so they won't stress during dry spells. You might only give them some extra water if your area hasn't had any rain in several weeks.

Avoid overwatering this garden space (that means watering too often). You don't need a formal irrigation system—these plants actually thrive when they get to dry out a bit between waterings. You'll know you're watering too often if you see little white patches (powdery mildew) appear on the leaves of some of your plants.

Weeding

Watch for weeds and lawn grass coming into the area. That's one reason I recommend installing edging along the perimeter of your native plant space. Pull weeds regularly so that they're not competing for resources with your plants.

Pruning

There are two main goals of pruning. The first is to make sure that each plant has sufficient light and space. If one plant is spreading too wide, prune some of its outer, lower leaves.

The second goal is to encourage more blooms by cutting right above a leaf node as soon as flowers are drying up or dying. Now the plant can focus on producing the next set of flowers. Deadheading (getting rid of the dead weight of flowers that are past their prime) goes a long way to keep flowering plants productive for longer.

Every couple of years, you might also need to divide plants like yarrow that are spreading themselves via lateral roots. Use a sharp shovel or a hori hori knife to split the plant and lift the roots. Now you have more plants to spread throughout your landscape!

One More Thing: Don't Spray Pesticides on Your Native Plant Garden!

Let caterpillars be. Don't freak out and reach for the sprays if you notice something's munching on your leaves. The point of having a garden like this is to work with nature, not control it. You've created a beautiful space for nature to do its thing, and this little ecosystem will maintain itself.

Remember, today's caterpillars could be tomorrow's monarch butterflies!

Do Some Real Good with Your Landscape

Your native plant space will instantly connect you with nature. Just days after installation, you'll start seeing birds and toads and lizards and so many pollinators. Every time you step outside, you'll be amazed at the wonder that is a garden buzzing with life.

I hope your native plant garden brings you as much joy as it brings helpful wildlife to your outdoor space! Here's to doing real good in our landscapes!