“Right plant, right place” is a popular design mantra. But who’s in a better position to find the right place than the plants themselves? And why don’t we just let them?
People often ask me what my garden looks like. It’s not an easy question to answer. What does it look like according to whom? My friend down the street who also plants for wildlife? Another neighbor who killed every tree in his yard on purpose? My naturalist and horticulture colleagues? The spiders weaving their webs in the grasses?
I could respond by describing our patio area that, in a sign of increasing acceptance of native plant gardening, was showcased on the front page of the New York Times real estate section. Or I could talk about the more feral parts of this little patch of land, the places I nurture carefully but don’t even refer to as gardens anymore. If I sense any interest in wildlife at all, I could even conjecture what this habitat looks like from the perspective of a rabbit, a beetle, a bat or a mole tunneling beneath the last vestiges of turfgrass.
Usually my initial answer is more succinct, and perhaps a bit opaque without meaning to be. My garden, I say, is a garden in transition. It’s more like a nature preserve. I don’t control the plants so much as the plants tell me where they want to be. Where a new patch of violets has taken hold by our front fence, I’ve encouraged them, even though it will take a couple of seasons of hand-pulling and trimming to remove the weedy pasture grasses in between. Where the native nimblewill grass has covered the ground under the elderberries a few feet away, I’ve given it free rein, despite its reputation for being brown and therefore “ugly” in winter. Where staghorn sumacs and red buckeyes and walnuts and fleabanes pop up in perennial beds and the waning asparagus patch, they are allowed to make themselves at home, absorbing the light above to cool the earth below.
“Right plant, right place” has been a mantra among landscape designers for years, particularly those promoting native species. It’s a useful strategy, but it has a strong whiff of dominance and control, without even a verbal nod to the original inventors of the concept: the plants themselves. I propose a less human-centric guiding principle, one that fosters appreciation for plants’ roles in finding their own niches in the world: Let plants choose their destinies. In other words, step back, watch what sprouts when you aren’t looking, and have the humility to let it live.
“Right plant, right place” has been a mantra among landscape designers for years. I propose a less human-centric guiding principle, one that fosters appreciation for plants’ roles in finding their own niches in the world: Let plants choose their destinies.
I’ve written and spoken a lot about this subject because it’s the most humane and life-giving way to solve perceived problems in the home landscape: By recruiting volunteer plants, you can fill even large spaces affordably. Those plants are usually happy because they’ve chosen their own homes from the ground up. Happy plants inevitably spread, gradually helping you in your efforts to crowd out invasive vegetation harmful to wildlife habitat. And spreading plants make it possible to share with deer and other nibbling herbivores; unlike in a turf-and-tulip-filled yard, creative garden habitats offer such a riotous mixed buffet that few plants are devoured completely.
The idea of letting plants choose their destinies isn’t new, though it’s typically been confined to the fringe elements of the gardening world. Similar thoughts from some of my favorite horticultural rebels fill the pages of The Gardener Says: Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom, where Michael Pollan asserts that “a lawn is nature under totalitarian rule,” Peter Wohlleben concludes that “trees could solve the problem [of invasives] if people trying to improve things would only allow them to take over,” and Barbara Damrosch advises readers that gardening is easy if you just learn to “think like a plant.”
Last week a surprise encounter reminded me that wildlife gardening also requires thinking like animals — and letting them choose their destinies too. I was transplanting native groundcovers under a redbud tree, pushing aside decaying Japanese stiltgrass trimmings, when I saw a large American toad splayed out near my hand shovel. She was listless and surprised, but she quickly hopped under a leaf and burrowed back into the soil. I abandoned my task, grateful for the perennial lesson from the animals that this is their home too. It’s yet another reason to encourage native plants that show up unannounced at your garden party: Letting nature do more of the work helps lessen disturbance of animals residing in every fallen leaf, decaying stalk or bare patch of soil.
Though it’s a relief to give plants the lead, it’s not always easy to explain the concept to humans indoctrinated in cookie-cutter ideas of what home landscapes should look like. A few months ago, I was surprised when an acquaintance steered a light conversation about travel and art into far left field so he could comment on my “overgrown” property. Had he asked why our front yard looks half-brown in winter or what I’m doing in the corner where the violets are still taking hold, I would have been happy to explain. I would have been excited to tell him about the fritillary butterflies and specialist miner bees who depend on those violets to feed their young. I would have gladly described the way the now-brown native grass shines green in the heat of summer when conventional turf dries up, and how in winter its decaying blades nurture a veritable grocery store of young elderberries, smooth asters and bonesets that will eventually feed countless insects, birds, and mammals. I would have told him that, in just a few years’ time—with patience and continued reverence for the space and all its inhabitants—the methods to my madness will become more apparent.
But he didn’t ask, so I answered his question with more questions: “What does that word ‘overgrown’ mean to you? Who is defining it? You? Me? The lawn care companies? What would the birds have to say about it?” I also wondered silently to myself: If a property filled with plants is automatically “overgrown,” what do we call a community that continues to sprout new highways and shopping centers and houses with two-acre lawns where there used to be meadows and forests? Who is really “overgrown” here?
Sure, I know how to fit in with my human neighbors: Plant things they recognize in a row along the front, grow a hedge or a mowed edge facing the road, add paths and other signs of human intention like a birdbath or a birdhouse, plant in large clumps, and generally make a design that’s “legible” to human eyes. I appreciate those concepts and share them often with people who live in restrictive communities. In the old days, I even employed them with gusto, so much so that a neighbor down the street recently told me admiringly about the front-yard flowers of the “previous owner,” not realizing she was referring to my own first garden.
In a world increasingly threatened by our species’ ever-growing footprint, I’m more interested in impressing my wild neighbors instead. Rather than apologizing to humans for my ‘messy’ yard, I apologize to the plants and animals for all the yards that are too tidy.
These days, in a world increasingly threatened by our species’ ever-growing footprint, I’m more interested in impressing my wild neighbors instead. I care more about what the bees and beetles think, what the birds think, what the groundhogs and snakes and raccoons think. Rather than apologizing to humans for my “messy” yard, I apologize to the plants and animals for all the yards that are too tidy. If we really want to help wildlife, we have to recognize that perceived messiness comes with the territory. It’s time to challenge standards of “normalcy” promulgated by post-war-driven pesticide companies, rather than giving in to antagonizing market forces hellbent on subduing every violet disrupting the bland view of the nation’s millions of acres of turfgrass.
If you’re just getting started, the first step is to go out and find plants you haven’t seen before. Learn who they are by searching or posting pictures on iNaturalist or a native plant society Facebook page or plant identification group. Check out other online resources like Illinois Wildflowers or Go Botany or the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Make friends with the plants reseeding and volunteering in your garden, and don’t be afraid of them. Use plant tags and online information as a theoretical guide for learning about their cultural requirements, but remember that plants are as variable as we are: A wildflower that thrives in the full sun of a cool Maine summer, for example, might prefer a little afternoon shade in the baking heat of July in Maryland. Watch where plants seed and thrive naturally in your own locale, and they will alert you to their needs.
And when someone asks what your garden looks like, don’t feel the need to compare it to the artificial vision of suburbia that has gained a stranglehold on the cultural imagination. Channel your inner bee, ant, butterfly, raccoon or robin instead, and explain what your garden looks like through the eyes of the creatures making a life in the budding habitat that you’ve had the courage and the heart to protect.
Looking for an Mother’s Day gift? Check out The Gardener Says: Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom, compiled and edited by Nina Pick, or The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife, both from Princeton Architectural Press.
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Love love love this! We’ve had native snowberry appear, as well as juncus and some native bulbs. They aren’t where I would choose, but they’re happy so I’m happy.
We live in an HOA gulag, so have to walk that fine line between natural and manicured. No one has whispered a word of condemnation in years, so I guess we walk the line well. Clear paths, some rounded shrubs, definite cluster of plants….all seem to give that sense of order that people need. I think it’s abundantly obvious we care deeply for this land. Maybe that’s the most important ingredient when dealing with neighbors. Show them how and why you love what you love.
Thank you! It sounds like you have a great place and have been successful at pleasing both the animals and humans! Showing neighbors and others the reasons why you do this is so important, and it’s much easier if you have something that already resonates with them or piques their interest. So I think it’s smart, especially in an HOA-controlled community, to walk that line and ease people into it. I like to push where I can in other communities (like mine) where anything goes, and yet people choose only lawn anyway. I’ve read research showing that more people would garden with native plants and with wildlife in mind if they weren’t so worried about what their neighbors think — and it’s ridiculous to see how much people have been trained to react that way. As soon as one guy on my street gets out the mower, the others actually start saying, “Uh-oh, Joe mowed his lawn already; I need to do it tonight.”
Nancy, I love everything you write and return to each post often when I’m in need of encouragement and inspiration. My own tiny front and back yards are coming along (I’ve been planting natives for a year), but growing from seed or seedlings requires so much patience and trial and error! Every day I drink my coffee and look out at my yard and will the plants to grow. I’m dying for it to be “overgrown” 🙂
Hi Bethany,
Thank you! I’m so happy my posts help you keep the faith! That is fantastic that you are growing from seed. In my experience, even though they start out looking puny, those are often the plants that end up the happiest — because they got to get used to the soil and conditions from the very beginning. One thing I was recently reminded of was that wonderful saying: “First it sleeps; then it creeps; then it leaps.” Even though I’ve been doing this for a while now, it never fails: I’ll plant things and decide within the year afterwards that nope, I put it in the wrong place, or nope, it just doesn’t like it here in these conditions, etc. Some of these new plants even look like they’ve almost withered away, and then in the next season or two, they not only usually come back but start to thrive! This is my favorite time of year because all those plants I’d decided were lost are showing their cute little faces. 🙂
A perfect posting and perfect timing, this spring!
Hi Alex! Thank you! I hope you are enjoying the wonderful spring we are having.
Nancy, I love everything you write
Thank you so much, Janyce! 🙂
At 59 and considering myself a gardener for decades, I’ve been turned upside down by your book and my ignorance over the years. I hope to let some of our land plant itself, and thank you for this wisdom. Your book has taught me how and who should be doing the gardening – Mother Nature.
Michele, how did you deal with the pain of knowing the new owner would probably destroy what you’d lovingly tended? We want to move, but I’m terrified of the difficulty of finding the right buyer. The though of all this natural beauty being destroyed keeps me awake at night in panic. Any words of wisdom much appreciated.
I’m considering what will happen to all our natives when we move as well. I’m thinking of leaving a notebook with the realtor that explains why natives, our “landscape plan”, how easy they are once established, and the local nursery/landscapers that would care for it all if the new owners don’t have time or interest. And leaving my “pesticide free garden” sign! And hoping for the best.
I left the new owner all of my saved plant tags and a map of the garden. Knowledge is power! I also left my Pollinator Path sign.
I’ve wondered that, too. Perhaps advertise your nature oasis in a native plants or wildlife related magazine?
Yes, that’s a good idea. Thanks! I’ll be looking for those venues.
Thanks, Kathy and Sally, for your thoughts as well. I have a 3 ring notebook full of sheets on the native plants that I’ll leave behind, and will refresh my plant tags. The idea of a guidebook for the realtor is great, but I think I’ll leave it in the house for the new owners. I’ll lay out why the yard is what it is and how best to maintain it. I’ll leave behind some of my many signs too. All guideposts for the new owner to help ease them into leaving it be. More flies with honey and all that. 🙂
When I summon up the willpower, I intend to create a letter that I’ll send out to various realtors I think might be amenable to helping find the right buyers. I’ll lay out what we have here, including a largely green-built house (oh yeah, the HOUSE!) and that finding the right people is more important than the price. There’s got to be a realtor who gets it.
I appreciate the kindness here.
Hi Michele, wow, thank you so much for letting me know that! I’m really happy it helped you so much. I think most of us find ourselves evolving every day in this regard. It’s a lifelong journey. 🙂
I LOVE this post! I relate to this post having left my “wild, overgrown garden” behind. Unlike you, I gave up. I couldn’t be confined/defined in the neighborhood any longer. I’m sure the new owners have “cleaned it up.” It was a beautiful sanctuary where violets grew wild and the wild roses mingled with the Joe Pye Weed and the Goldenrod was left for the bees in autumn. That’s okay. I am now in the woods where I do not have a lawn or garden but just wildness and birds and bees and many other creatures. I wish you would have been my neighbor at that wild time!
Kathy, I meant to leave my post above for YOU. I mistakenly put it under Michele’s post.
The new owner loved my garden although I’m sure she and her husband will reign in the wildness and “clean it up” much to the liking of my old neighbors. She also planned on dividing things to bring to her summer island home. So, I look at it as she is spreading my garden around! I believe she will keep the trees – I planted a Maple and an Oak and a Tulip Tree. I look at it as nature. I let that garden grow and grow and perhaps the garden was all grown up when I let her go and she will continue her cycle. I also grew up and am continuing my cycle. I can always make a new garden – that is the beauty of gardening. It is never finished and always beginning. You can let go and always see growth in this beautiful world!
Thank you! I’m hoping to find a realtor who will advertise our home in Bay area native plant/environmental circles to increase our chances of finding good people. They’re moving up here to the Sacramento area in droves due to the high cost of living there. I hope to reach the letting go stage SOON. 🙂
Our new place in WA state will indeed be another opportunity to create a natural, wildlife-friendly haven. Growing up and moving forward in the cycle of life…I love it.
Kathy, it sounds like you’ve nurtured two wonderful and very different habitats! I’m glad the new owners of your previous home did at least appreciate a lot of the plants you had. Like JT, I have had actual nightmares that we had to move suddenly, and I couldn’t bear the thought of the creatures who’ve made their lives here or come to rely on this little patch along their journeys – even in small ways – being displaced. I’m happy that at least some people in my neighborhood are starting to plant and show more interest, even in small ways. Every little bit helps. 🙂
Letting plants grow where they want, would be great if we didn’t have invasives. On the West Coast, where I live if, we all did that we would have nothing but invasives in our gardens. Ivy, St. John’s Wort, Periwinkle, Scotch Broom, Bindweed, and Himalayan Blackberry are big problems and have taken over a lot of the more fragile native plants that used to grow here. We need to control them and preferably stop people from planting these species in the first place.
Hi Carol, having just spent the morning reducing Bradford pears, autumn olives and multiflora rose, I definitely understand what you’re saying. I’m not suggesting giving in to invasives and letting them take over. But some of these overlooked natives — and often ones that get swept up in the rush to remove everything — can prove to be helpful competitors if you work in concert with them. Just this morning going through the Bradford pear thickets (a very big problem here), I found so many gray dogwoods volunteering — also a thicketing shrub known to help keep out the pears once you get reduce the pears enough. So many times while I’m volunteering in local natural areas, I’ve noticed our main task is pulling invasives and we end up stepping and pulling everything else too — and I’d like to see a shift to spending half that time identifying the natives that already exist and working from there. It’s true that in some places you won’t find many, but in others there are many underappreciated hidden gems! 🙂
A great article…Thank you! I have a pool that got a leak years ago and so I’ve let it go natural. No one understands that but I love it. Lots of frogs and yes, water snakes who eat frogs but only one or two a year…non poisonous variety. I am letting more and more grass go to native plants who want to be there and require less water and I do not use herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers anymore. Have more wildlife too…
Hi Mindy, it sounds like you have a wonderful habitat! That’s neat that you made your pool into a more natural area. So many more animals can use the space now!
Thanks Nancy – you express so well much of what I feel too, far away here in South Africa. Gardening by letting go and letting grow is so much more enjoyable and rewarding than gardening to stick to conventions that make gardening more like a martial art where uniformity and discipline are guiding principles. I
Like you, I also weed alien invasives carefully, finding lots of self-seeded plants to leave where they are, transplant or give away. I like your concept of a garden in transition. Like the self-seeded plants gaining a foothold, I am also constantly “finding my feet” as I go along. Thanks for the encouragement and inspiration.
Hi Carol! Yes! Letting go and grow – I love the poetry of that. 🙂 And of finding your feet, getting rooted in the land, and such. Seeing what comes up and learning about it is a form of connection to the land that wouldn’t happen if we just imposed our own views of what plants “should” be there. Thanks for reading and checking in – I always love hearing from you and wish we were neighbors!
Thanks Nancy. Your blog provides a feeling of neighbourliness as sometimes we can feel a bit isolated in neighbourhoods of gardens with no concern for wildlife. So thank you. I learn a lot from your posts and your approach and feel supported too.
Thank you so much. I feel that way about you too, Carol. I started feeling very alone this evening while using my little mechanical reel mower to do the strips by the road and a few paths – because three of the four immediate neighbors were on their riding mowers for the second time in a week (the fourth already had the company they hire come last night). I could hear the crunch of the brush piles and sticks and whatever and whoever else might have fallen victim to the blades – perhaps turtles but also other animals who disappear more quietly – and I just felt very alone. Then I came here to read comments and look at your blog and others and felt much better. Topping it off, a hummingbird has come to feed on the coral honeysuckle right in front of me as I write on my laptop. So all is not lost … and I so appreciate the support too.
I would love to have you as a neighbor! I have been “listening” to plants for years as I choose what to plant, what to weed and what to leave alone. Living in a city as I do, I’m surrounded by gas-powered edgers and leaf blowers, herbicide users, and all manner of those who are not sympathetic to the natural world. I just keep on preserving my small patch of bee- and bird-friendly landscape and hope what I provide will help in some way.
Hi Katie, I often wish we could all connect up our habitats! It sounds like you have an oasis for urban wildlife. We are out in the supposed “country,” but it sure doesn’t feel like it a lot of the time now, with more and more machines going for more and more hours of the day. I think setting an example is helpful, though. I bet there are people in your neighborhood who see your garden or see a butterfly or bird in it, and at some point it sparks a thought or an interest about it. It may not spark action right away, but that’s OK – sometimes it takes a while for the seedling to emerge! 🙂 I’ve seen that here a lot, and that’s the kind of thing I try to hold onto when I get frustrated. Last summer a neighbor saw a goldfinch on her echinacea that I gave her, and it made a connection for her that no amount of talking about it had made in the past … That single moment made her want to plant more natives!
Delightful! Moments like that are priceless.
Our new neighbors have cut down all the vegetation. It’s appalling. They’ll probably plant roses, palm trees and lawn. I wish they’d read your book. On the other hand, we’ve planted native trees and some seeds are landing in our yard. Now we have two baby quillay (quillaja saponaria)! Humane gardening ‘s the answer.
Hi Soledad, I’m so sorry to hear that! That’s terrible. That is exactly what one of our new neighbors over the past couple of years has done. It sounds like it’s not just a U.S. cultural issue. I don’t understand how this phenomenon can be so universal because it’s so backwards! Well, maybe eventually they will see the light, and if they don’t, I hope others in your community do – by looking at your example.
I use a lot of native plants in my gardens as I transition to all natives. However, I have found that some of these natives are very aggressive. If I didn’t pull seedlings and runners my garden would be mainly golden alexanders, goldenrod, and cup plant. All three have seriously threatened less aggressive plants such as pale purple coneflower, monarda, sneezeweed, and aquilegia. So, while I appreciate letting a native plant grow where it seeds itself, there is a limit if one wants a variety of plants.
Yvonne, how are you getting monarda to be considered one of your less aggressive plants? Right now I think the solution is to put the aggressive plannts in a bed together and let them fight it out…
Sure, I understand that. I move most of my Canada goldenrod to our back meadow, though I do leave some in beds because the deer love it and it keeps them happy and, as a result, protects some of my other plants until they are big enough. In the end, I’d rather have a few vigorous natives than the huge amount of invasives that would otherwise cover the property and are always waiting at the edges. But my main point here in this essay and in other forums where I talk about this subject is that we shouldn’t willy-nilly just pull out everything or run the mower over it — that there are some real treasures coming up all summer if we just look for them and watch for a while and have some patience. Sometimes we have to move things, but often there are so many neat little discoveries of new species and combinations of plants that we wouldn’t even have thought of. That’s what I hope for other gardeners — that they too can experience the wonders and joys of that and see what kind of life comes as a result.
I love this article! Little by little, we can make a difference and share with others the benefits of “gardening” with natives and being sensitive to what nature wants to plant in our yards. Allowing that to happen lets the beneficial bugs come in and work their magic.
We’ve recently added honeybees to our yard and I cringe when I see signs in the neighborhood that people are spraying for mosquitos. Maybe I should gift them bat houses! 🙂
Thanks, Diane! Yes, it’s amazing how much life comes back when you just work with nature even a little bit. Bat houses for your neighbors sound like a great idea, as well as maybe an introduction to the wonders of dragonflies and damselflies! We started having tons of them as soon as we let the back field go to meadow.
Hi Nancy. Your excellent work, spreading worthwhile ideas and encouragement continues — thank you! Here’s an idea that might mesh with some of your travels, speaking opportunities, and individual contacts: hundreds of thousands of “retirees” (55 and older) are moving to communities with very small yards and landscaping restrictions. Many “older folks” used to be gardeners, but might not be as interested or physically capable as they used to be for doing outside work — and yet their appreciation of the many aspects of Nature is still sincere. Many retirement communities do have walking/biking trails. With education, maybe some community managers would be open to the idea of borders being planted along the trails and paths. With appropriate selections, the plantings would attract insects, butterflies, birds, etc. that the residents would notice, enjoy, and view as a definite feature of their community. Maybe residents could manage an hour or two of volunteer time to assist with maintenance and/or the property landscape workers could learn what to do/what not to do in those areas. If this idea would take hold and become widespread, it would supply A LOT of additional/new habitat area throughout the US.
Brilliant idea! Many of these places have golf courses as well, where great habitat could be created along paths and edges. You’re a visionary, Debbie!
Thank you JT! — I’m glad you think the idea might have some merit. Nancy: I was thinking that if you have the opportunity to speak to garden clubs (nationwide) some members might become interested in taking on “a retirement community project”: i.e. meeting with appropriate management personnel to “sell” the idea, then giving advice re: the best locations for the “borders”, requesting funds for purchasing plants, assisting with the planting (and maintenance?), and (before, during, and after the initial project) presenting programs to the RESIDENTS re: why native plants, ID of “their” native plants, what to watch for as the plants become established and begin to improve habitat for creatures, how to ID the creatures, etc. Maybe this would be material for, and help to inspire, your next book — it could help people take the next step: going native outside of their own properties. Hugs to you.
Hi again, Debbie! Yes, this is an excellent idea. I know a group near Baltimore — Green Towson Alliance — that has done this on a retirement community property there. The groundskeepers are very open to it and have allowed the group to plant many native trees and shrubs along the pathways, and they’ve also planted in a little valley area of sorts. It’s quite cool! In September I’m speaking at a retirement community because several of the members are hoping to help others recognize the value of habitat plantings. I think it would be a great idea to actually incorporate suggestions for how they might do it and also show pictures of the other community that already has. Thank you for the suggestion – I wouldn’t have thought of that until I read your comment! 🙂