Wildlife Gardening: Wildlife Sanctuary Help!, 1 by sempervirens

sempervirens wrote:
Hi gapeahen,
What a wonderful project you have planned. We planted a large butterfly garden and a native plant garden at one of the local schools only to have the new PTA remove all the plantings 4yrs later because it didn't meet their requirements of a manicured garden. So, from my limited experience, I would approach the road side planting with the same design sense you would use for a traditional garden design. The only reference I could find for a "designed " native garden was in a book by Viki Ferreniea called "Wildflowers in your Garden a Gardeners Guide". It does contain layouts for plantings I'm sure you could adapt.
I have a small suburban lot but I planted a small streetside garden to be mosly native and wildlife friendly. It certainly isn't on the scale your planning but I can show you what I did to make it appear planned and acceptable to the community.
My space is narrow also just 3' at the widest with a side walk then another narrow front garden. I used grasses (switch grass) as a backdrop unifying plant. In the spring before the grasses are up moss phlox and lots of Penstemon Husker Red carry the front.