Welcome to the front yard pollinator movement where the lawn is turned over to flowering plants, where blooms color the landscape from early spring to the first hard frost, where gardens stand through winter, and where we add a wonderful mix of native and cultivated plants.
We recently asked homeowners to take the 50-50 challenge. What if, we proposed, you replaced half of your yard with a new or expanded garden? Then what if half of your new plants were native plants? The response has been beautiful!
Why the Front Yard? If all we see when we go about our day is the expected boxwoods, Taxus, and Liriope, then it’s likely that’s what we will plant when we design a new landscape. We plant what we see.
It’s time we change what we see in the front landscape.
By expanding our plant palette- moving beyond expected, traditional front landscape plants and using more flowering plants- we create environments more conducive to pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. There’s a great deal of design flexibility when we plant with pollinators. In fact, I would say the design possibilities are immense, as we are moving beyond a lawn and a tiny garden relegated to a three-foot wide strip running the length of the house. When we plant with nature, the gardens are generously sized, and the plant offering is vast. The front pollinator garden can have a strong nod to natural plant arrangement where plants intermingle and reseed at will, or it can be more refined, orderly, and tidy, while still offering the same benefits for nature.
Garden Prep
There are many ways you can prepare your new garden site. Some gardeners opt to kill the lawn with cardboard or plastic. Others kill the lawn by scalping the grass with a mower or string trimmer and then plant directly in the old sod. We prefer to remove the sod, lightly till the soil, then add copious amounts of new soil. Ideally, we want gardeners to be able to plant their gardens with a simple hand tool. We strive for soil that releases weeds with ease, making weeding an easy task, some would even say enjoyable.
Planting
We strive for a lush garden straight away. Open areas are visible at first, as many plants are small, particularly plugs, but they will fill in the garden in short order. A lush garden is easier to tend to, will block and disguise any weeds, and is more attractive to foraging pollinators. Lush gardens are also more forgiving. Should a plant die, it’s not as noticeable as it would be in a traditionally planted garden where plants are carefully spaced apart and buffered with mulch.
Mulch
We mulch new gardens with pine straw. Pine straw will not smother plants, does not compact like some shredded mulch can, and it’s easier to work with. Pine straw is light, making it easier to carry, and only a piece of twine remains when you are done: no plastic bags to contend with.
Garden Care The gardens stand through winter to provide visual interest for the homeowner while offering pollinators shelter and food. In the spring the gardens are cut back by hand, with cuttings left in the garden to act as mulch. We do not use chemicals in the gardens.
Welcome to Your Yard!
Chances are, if your front landscape is the expected planting, the desire to get out and explore and see what’s new never occurs. Why would it? Our landscapes shouldn’t be still life paintings, never changing from season to season. Our landscapes should be evolving, blooming, swaying in the breeze, and have seed heads and tufts of grasses dusted with snow in the winter. Our landscapes should be continuously whispering to us, come out and see what’s new.
Plants!
The following is a list of some of the plants we are using in front yard pollinator gardens.
Achillea ‘Little Moonshine’
Full sun. Low water. Remove spent flowers to promote blooms through autumn.
Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’
Full sun, low – medium water Blooms July – September. Stands through winter. Bee magnet.
Allium ‘Millenium’ Blooms July – August, full sun-part sun, low maintenance, leave spent flowers standing through winter for visual interest.
Alchemilla mollis ‘Lady’s Mantle’
Full – Part sun. Blooms in the spring. Can be used as a ground cover.
Amsonia hubrichtii
Soft, sways in the breeze. Delicate flowers early in the season, great fall color. Shape-form contrasts well with upright plants like Echinacea.
Asclepias tuberosa
Host plant for Monarch caterpillars. Full sun. Low water. Very late to emerge in the spring, so be patient.
Baptisia
Give this beautiful native room to grow as it reaches 3-4 feet tall and wide. It thrives in the full sun, is a host plant for orange sulphur, clouded sulphur, frosted elfin, eastern tailed blue, hoary edge, and wild indigo duskywing, and its dried seed pods are a great addition to flower arrangements. Very easy to grow.
Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
Full sun. Low to medium water. Can be used in rain gardens. Provides soft, gentle movement in the garden. Stands through winter. Well behaved.
Calaminthanepeta
Wonderful filler plant adored by the bees. Soft, airy. Reseeds in open spaces, but I have not found it to push out other plants. Gives a new garden an instantly lush look and feel.
Cuphea
I have few must-have annuals, and this is one! Hummingbirds love this plant. Very easy to grow. I like to give it full sun and well-draining soil.
Echinacea
Depending on the garden, we may use a taller Echinacea like ‘Magnus’ or a shorter variety like ‘Julia’. In our gardens we use Echinacea purpurea and Echinacea pallida. Likely to stand through winter. Goldfinches devourer the seeds. Pairs well with a shorter grass to soften-hide its bare winter stems.
Eryngium yuccifolium
Native prairie plant adored by a wide variety of pollinators. Does best when planted in close proximity with other plants. Will stand through winter. Reseeds, but new plants are very easy to identify and remove. Children find the spikey flowers very interesting. Lends a wonderful sculptural element to the garden. Looks wonderful with a light dusting of snow – winter interest!
Lantana
Another must-have annual. Full sun, well-draining soil is all this plant needs to bloom from early summer to the first hard frost. Bees, skippers and hummingbirds like it. Comes in a wide variety of colors.
Muhlenbergia capillaris
Full sun to part shade. Give this native grass room to open and show its pink colors in the late fall. Looks beautiful with Black-eyed Susans and Color Guard Yucca.
Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’
Full sun, low water. One of the first plants to emerge in the spring. Will bloom to the first frost if given a trim now and again. Bees adore this plant as do skippers.
Penstemon ‘Red Rockets’
This great plant is squatter and bushier, not tall like the name would imply, nor are the flowers red, but a more fuchsia. The bumble bees adore this plant, hummingbirds, too. I found it to be somewhat evergreen, responds well to dead heading, and easy to grow.
Rudbeckia Maxima
Plant this native beauty for its height, silvery-blue foliage and tall, elegant stems bedecked with yellow flowers. It’s the seeds of this plant that makes it a winner. Plant this and see the goldfinches come to your garden. May stand through winter, if all the birds alighting on its tall stems doesn’t cause it to lean. Plant with Karl Foerster grass and Rudbeckia ‘Autumn Sun’.
Rudbeckia ‘Autumn Sun’
If you want to add dramatic height in your garden this is a plant worth considering! It blooms with ease and its cheery yellow flowers are delicate and light in appearance perched atop talk stalks. It’s often visited by smaller bees, and the finches will alight on it to eat is seeds. Does best when planted in close proximity to other plants like Karl Foerster and Rudbeckiamaxima.
Salvia sylvestris ‘Caradonna’
Best when planted in groups of three or more to create dramatic drifts of color in the landscape. I do like to remove spent flowers. Prefers full sun and well-draining soil.
Schizachyrium scoparium AKA Little Bluestem
Schizachyrium scoparium AKA Little Bluestem Native grass. Full sun. Low water. Stands through winter. Host plant. Great spring, summer, and fall color.
Stachysofficinalis ‘Hummelo’
I am not ashamed to say I am in love with this plant! The base stays evergreen, the spent flowers are so interesting that people often comment on them in a positive way, they are very well-behaved, look gorgeous in stands of 5-7 or in drifts, and are very easy to prune once the blooms fade to encourage a second flush of blooms. They are tidy- making them ideal for those who want plants to attract pollinators, but don’t want a wild looking garden.
