Native Gardening Maintenance - Tips + Tricks
Getting started with native gardening can be overwhelming. There’s so much new information to learn!
These are some of DRL’s favorite native gardening tips and tricks to help you on this new gardening journey. Some of these recommendations will help you learn what plants are native to your area; others will help you spend less time on garden chores and more time admiring the plants and wildlife that come to visit them.
Your Yard Is Habitat!
Tip #1 - Spend time in your garden regularly!
The more time you spend in your garden, the easier it will be to recognize and identify the plants around you. Regularly checking up on your garden doesn’t have to take much time! Try walking through your garden or sitting by your plants for five to ten minutes daily.
We recommend giving new plants a long drink of water two to three times a week. Deep watering encourages the roots to grow downwards into the soil and makes them resilient for dry periods. Watering by hand with a hose is a great way to familiarize yourself with your plants, but you can also use a sprinkler system with or without a timer.
Weeding is essential, especially with small plants. Check your garden at least once a week to remove any new weeds that have popped up in your garden beds. Weeding after watering softens the soil and makes pulling the entire weed from leaves to roots easier.
Tip #2 - Label your plants when they go in the ground.
Keeping the label from the plant nursery or making your plant labels will save you a lot of time trying to identify what you planted in the future! You can purchase many options for plant tags or labels or make your own!
Tip #3 - Plant species in groups and drifts.
Groups of odd numbers, like three or five, are pleasing to the eye and commonly used in garden designs. Not only does a group of plants look pretty, but it also makes it easier to maintain the garden as weeds stand out as plants out of place. It also makes life easier for our pollinators, who don’t have to travel as far to go from plant to plant while eating or laying eggs.
Check out these examples of gardening in drifts for shady and sunny spots!
Tip #4 - Use Plant Identification Apps
There are a lot of great apps that can help you identify plants in your garden and the wild. DRL loves iNaturalist because we can identify plants, insects, and fungi!
This video will walk you through using iNaturalist to identify a plant. Apply these instructions to your favorite identification app!
Tip #5 - Use an online database or plant nursery to identify your plants.
There is a wealth of native plant information to be found online. These are our favorite websites for plant identification and growing and cultural knowledge.
Plant Databases
Missouri Botanical Garden's Plant Finder
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Native Plants Database
National Wildlife Federation Plant Finder
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
Plant Nurseries
Tip #6 - Build your home library with native plant reference books.
These excellent books can help you identify what’s growing in your garden.
Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide by Lawrence Newcomb
The Midwestern Native Garden by Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz
The Gardener’s Guide to Prairie Plants by Neil Diboll and Hilary Cox
Native Plants of the Midwest by Alan Branhagen
The Prairie in Seed by Dave Williams
Tip #7 - Take notes about your garden and/or photos.
Most of us have a fantastic digital camera with us everywhere we go in the form of a smartphone. Take advantage of this technology by recording notes on your phone (using an app or voice recordings) or taking photos of your plants and landscape. Regularly taking photos or jotting down notes can help you learn what your plants look like throughout the year and each season.
If you’re a list maker, use this skill to list the plants as you add them to your landscape. Divide your yard into sections, or name each garden area. List the plants you have identified in each space or as you plant them. This list can be a digital list, a spreadsheet, or a list on paper.
Tip #8 - Certify Your Habitat!
A sign (or two, or three!) in your garden shows your community your commitment to nature. It educates your neighbors who may need to become more familiar with gardening for wildlife. Signs, plant labels, garden art, pathways, and edges also show that an unconventional garden is an intentional planting, not a neglected space. These are especially important when gardening for wildlife in communities with stricter garden regulations or in an HOA.
Yard Certifications
Firefly Conservation & Research
North American Butterfly Association
Tip #9 - Skip Garden Clean Up!
One of the easiest ways to provide winter habitat for pollinators and other insects is to do as little fall and spring clean-up as possible. You can skip cutting herbaceous plants to the ground and raking your leaves for trash or compost collection. If we leave leaves where they fall and the stems and seedheads of flowering plants and grasses standing, we can provide a safe space for many tiny creatures to overwinter and raise their young.
Many insects overwinter in fallen leaves, like butterflies and moths that spend the winter as caterpillars or pupae in leaf litter. Native bees spend the winter in hollow plant stems, and queen bumblebees overwinter just beneath or on the ground's surface. Some butterflies, like the Goatweed Leafwing (Anaea andria), overwinter in fall leaves in their adult form, which looks like a dead leaf.
Seedheads are Mother Nature's bird feeders; if you leave them, you will likely see some avian neighbors chowing down on them. Additionally, even dormant, our native plantings offer a lot of visual interest. Hence, hurrying up and cleaning the garden is unnecessary - brown has many beautiful hues!
In the spring, when there hasn't been a frost for two weeks, you can cut back the dead flower stalks, leaving between 10 and 24 inches of the stems for bees to use as nesting cavities. The new growth of your plants will quickly hide last year's stems.
If you are unable to leave your leaves in place, these are some alternatives that can still help insects and other little critters:
Rake your leaves into your garden beds or around the bases of trees.
Over time, they will decompose and add nutrients to your soil.
Collect your leaves and add them to your compost pile.
Avoid shredding leaves with a mower. Leaving leaves whole, even if you rake them into a new area, will protect insects.
If you decide to clean up the leaves and debris in spring, wait until late in the season so you do not kill insects that overwintered in your yard.
Visit The Xerces Society for more information.
We hope these tips help you feel more comfortable gardening with nature and the native plants you’re growing. Every native plant you can add to your yard benefits the wildlife in your neighborhood!