Native Prairie Garden

Here's a prairie garden of one of my former clients. She's since moved, boo hoo, and I won't get to go there anymore. But I still have the pictures.

Since it's very eclectic and free-formed I think it still falls into the cottage garden theme.

It's 99.9% Native prairie plants. The only ones that are not are a few 'Christophii' Allium which you just can't beat for color and texture.

It's nice to show people that these types of gardens don't have to look weedy. There's almost no staking - only the prairie blazing star.

Many of these plants will grow well on both coasts, the south and in between.

Here's another. The white flower in front is Wild quinine. And the tall stalky plant is Prairie Dock.

The tall grass - it has the same graceful appearence as Miscanthis is Prairie Cord Grass. It's a good substitute for it. Although it's a bit more invasive and you have to keep it root pruned annually once it's established if you don't want it to spread.

Backyard - on opposite side of yard. Orange coneflower, Purple Cone and the small lilac flowers are Wild Petunia.

Another view of this bed - longer shot.

View from the back porch stairs. The Joe Pye weed is in bloom.

Closeup of the Liatris in front of the beautiful Indian Grass and Culver's Root - End of July.

Shot of the tiny front yard - it's amazing how you can pack these plants into an itty bitty area.

Back bed - long shot. The wonderful thing about this garden is it received no supplemental water at all, just natural rainfall. Granted, it was a wet year. But it's really amazing

Picture on long bed during September.

Another picture of same bed opposite side from September.

GoNative,
Thanks for posting the prairie garden photos. This looks like a suburban lot. What has the neighbors reaction been? Since the house was sold with the "wild" garden look how did buyers react?
I have a modified prairie in the front of my house using Switch, Indian and Little Bluestem. I leave the grasses and some plants for winter interest. Toward the middle of winter some of the display gets slightly more natural looking than some neighbors like so I try to add some small non native heath for the evergreen color.

Dear Sempervirens,

Actually, the garden is in the city of Chicago. The real estate marketed the property actually highlighting the garden. The old homeowner was lucky, a couple of creative types (they're filmmakers) bought the place. Because normally this type of garden would get ripped out.

As for the neighbors, they really like it alot. The house is in a heavy, immigrant neighborhood and they like this sort of look. Also, Mayor Daley has been trying to green the city of Chicago for years and encourages this sort of stuff. However, sometimes with a nasty neighbor you can run into problems with complaints to the streets and sanitation guys.

I have had problems where I live with my own garden. I live right next the city in Cicero. I've also got a parkway garden and I've got one of those old, backwards type of neigbors who think lawn is king and that's what you should always have - he called the town on me two summers ago. I went to court twice fight it and I had to modify my parkway garden quite a bit. So far they haven't bothered much about it although there's always that threat lingering if I don't keep highly pruned.

The problem is that the parkway is considered city or town property but you're still responsible for maintaining it and they can actually come in a remove it with a court order. But as for personal property they have no jurisdiction. If the some of the neighbors continue to be upset about it, I would head it off first by maybe moving some of the taller stuff, like the grasses, onto to your side and then just keep the rest of the parkway immaculate and then they can't say anything.

Most of people's concern is ignorance and they'll use any excuse like it encourages rats and so on.

I love your prairie garden.Way to GoNative!

Wonderful, GoNative! Good for you! And I thoroughly enjoyed your former client's yard.

Beautiful job! How did they keep the edge so clean? That is one of my many weaknesses.

Dear All,

Thank you for all your nice compliments. This was one of my favorite gardens and I miss it.

PrairieGirl,

The secret is that I use a hand tool called an edger or half moon. I use it to cut a very shallow trench to the shape of the bed. Because this cuts the grass roots it is a fairly effective way of keeping lawn grass and some creeping weeds like charlie and clover out of the beds. You then shake off the soil and dispose of any of the cut stuff and then smooth out the soil and rake the mulch back to the edge.

The frequency of doing this depends on how vigorous or weedy the lawn is. In this case, I did it every 6 weeks because of all the creeping clover crawling into the beds. However, if you've got a healthy lawn which doesn't move too fast, you can probably get away with 3 times a year.

You can also use a regular garden spade if you don't have an edger. The only downside is that I find it puts more pressure on the knees plus since it has square edges you have to be careful not to leave sqaure edges in the cuts you make. Basically, it just takes a little more practice with the spade.

Hope this helps!

DH got me a new half moon which is far easier to use than my old one . . . I don't know how to explain it . . . you sort of "walk it along." I'll take a pic tomorrow. It's marvelous! And I admit to being addicted to using it - not only is it a great way to edge, but it also works for widening a bed.

I have to have one! Murmur I can't wait to see what you've got, we had something like that when I was a kid. That would be perfect now for me, since I'm constantly changing my mind about the size and shape of the beds. Where did he get it?

I've posted this pic before on other threads, apologies to those who have seen it before, this garden was started last June. Still filling in the gaps.

edited to add: These aren't all natives, I have miscanthus instead of the wonderful native grasses you've got GoNative.

This message was edited Mar 1, 2007 9:16 AM

Here it is - not a great pic, but hopefully you can get the idea. Your foot goes on the foot piece length-wise and you just walk it along, rocking it back and forth in hard sod. It's called "The Steppin' Edger" and DH got it at Ace Hardware. I don't know how I ever got along without it! It works better than the regular style in probably 98% of the times I use it.

Aw, you even took it outside in the snow to show us, how nice. It looks like a great tool. I'll look for it when I head out to Ace for a new "springtime" flag for the house.

And in my bathrobe at 7:15a.m. or so - see how much I like you and want to share the info!!! LOL - hope you find one and enjoy it as much as I do mine.

Thank you Murmur. Yes, I can tell you like me, you really like me! ;-)

Dear Prairiegirl,

Where in IL are you because I've got that same exact tool sitting in my garage - a gift from another client. The half moon Murmur is talking about is a bit different then the one I use. The one I got as a gift though is exactly like the one in the picture.

Anyway, I've been looking for a home for it.

If you're within driving distance maybe we could arrange something like a halfway point - me, I'm right next to the city right above Midway Airport. A heavy duty one is usually $20 and up.

I like the Prairie natives and the like's in a Cottage style garden... Or would it be a Prairie Cottage theme???

Quill - How stunning! Love the lambs ear/coneflower/OG combo.

Gorgeous! And your grass looks positively luxurious!

Gonative, Great pictures. I just love the black-eyed susans, but ran into a huge problem of it becoming invasive when I left the seed pods on it for the winter for the birds. Now I keep it in its own barrel and I trim the seed heads off. I would guess in the natural garden it would have a much harder time spreading.

I can imagine the problems with the neighbors. My husband would be one of them. The front of our home has to be landscaped nice and tidy, even though it is on the 'bushy side', not an 'open' landscape by the house.
I have a friend who keeps one corner of her big back yard filled with native flowers. Her hubby refers to it as her 'weed garden'.

Dear GoNative,
Thank you for taking the time to reply to all the questions I asked. I was curious to hear how a native type garden would be received in another area of the country in a urban/ suburban setting. I'm glad the response was positive and even a selling point. From my own experience I've found a 90% positive rating with a few vocal exceptions. I also went to court, and won the case with strong support from neighbors,
a horticulturist and the local garden club. There are a lot of parkway strip gardens in our town and a very strong garden club which helps. I try to add many flowers to appeal to a broader group of people since the garden is out front. In the spring it starts as a traditional daffodil, spring bulb garden that has more general appeal. The reason I leave the tall grasses (besides attracting birds) in front is because my objecting neighbor has raked out plants if I don't keep it tall and full.
The photo shows the same garden in the spring.

That's absolutely lovely - I cannot imagine everyone not loving it!!! Of course, I too have a husband who, if it was left to him, would have a few rhodies and azaleas, and grass. And the grass would not be taken care of. He does appreciate what I do, but doesn't "get it." He does, however, understand the greens at the golf course being well cared for!!!

This is funny, my sister calls natives "weeds" also, I just don't understand that way of thinking. sempervirens - are you the one with the nutty raker who cases your place? All I can say is, it takes all kinds!

Murmur, thanks

Prairie, yes I am the one who lives near Rakeman.

Here's a photo of the same garden later in June.

Here's the garden in the early fall.

The last is late fall in the same parkway garden.

Just gorgeous, I love the entire composition.

Bravo, Well done! Thanks for the show

Dear Sempervirens,

I love your garden - it's beautiful. The aster's and the beardstogue is awesome!

It also amazes me how people can object to this sort of beauty and get into other people's business when there's so much else to worry about. I've got two nasty neighbors on one side - I call them the 'Lawn Nazis.' It got so bad one year that I had to call the police when one of them threatened me with his lawn mower. He almost ran over my foot and got in my face, and he also managed zing a few of my plants. I also found out that some of the old people that don't even live on my block who attend Neighborhood Watch were complaining. Fortunately, the neighbor on the side of me is cool with it - she loves both the front and the parkway gardens. In fact, she been so inspired as to add more gardens to her backyard. But she's still afraid to do anything with the front yard and parkway.

As it stands, the judge said I could have what I wanted on the parkway but that I have to leave 18 inches from the curb clear (makes sense) - I put a flagstone path in folks to get in/out of the car .And that the plants have to be maintained at a foot or less. I've been cheating - everything's between 18 inches to 2 feet. But I keep it clipped so no one notices too much so far.

I find I am speechless over such ridiculous stuff - don't these folks know there are children starving, old folks having trouble caring for themselves, people with terrible illnesses? Now THOSE are things to get upset about . . . and even DO something about!!!

So sorry that some of you have to go through such garbage. Glad you hang in there with your beautiful gardens - they are inspiring!!

Sad to say,

But the old foggies next door (as well as a few others in the neighborhood), even though they have so many blessings (beautiful grandkids, nice home all fixed up and paid off, decent jobs) think it's their job to call on everything. They're so negative and hateful. They're upset because the neighborhood has changed to a 90% immigrant population and that many of these people have kids. They don't like kids, animals or any noise or anything different from what they've always known.

I've been battling them for several years over their Silver Maple which has cracked up my gangway and fence. I haven't wished anything bad on them but that they move to a place where they'll be happy.

I'd glad to see that other people from all over are bucking the trend.

Quill,

I really love your garden - I like the awesome mix of textures, the coneflowers with grass and the lines of the beds. Oh, I like trees out the front of your windows. Are those Aspens! They're very cool and look like they give really good shade in the summer.

semper, very pretty roadside garden. I was going to ask you if you have problems with people walking on the garden when they get in and out of the car, but it looks like GoNative beat me too it.

I typed this whole paragraph the other day and then deleted it since it wasn't about a "native' roadside garden. But since we are touching on roadside gardens, I thought I'd include it now.
I have a triangle roadside area that is the place where the snowplow pushes all the snow from the street. So this area gets 'surface scraped' each winter, tons of salt deposited on it. Also, the kids in the neighborhood walk on it, ride thier bikes on it, and once in a while a car cuts the corner too fast and rides over it. As you can imagine, I had a very hard time keeping grass looking nice there.

I have never done anything to help the soil, and have tried to plant some plants I thought could withstand the abuse, but not having too much luck. Here is a picture of it in the spring, May I think. Mostly I grow a few of the rudbeckia and plant them here to give it some color. I have a couple different sedums and stella daylilies here. I've tried a few other, but to no avail. I have a couple daffs and lilies that manage to come up.

The kids like to pick the flowers I plant, and I've told myself, no matter what is done to the garden I won't cause a scene, it is there for the enjoyment of all and I'm not going to get upset about kids picking flowers or ect. easier said than done. :o)

Most of the neighbors with areas like mine fill it with a big rock and landscaping stones, but I asked the city if I could do a garden, they said just keep it under 36 inches ... that was the only requirement.

Spring roadside garden ... sorry I don't have one for later in the year.
toofew~