Turning your backyard lawn into a native wildflower garden

My friend Karen turned 600 square feet of her backyard into a wildflower meadow full of native plants. She first removed the grass by sheetmulching with cardboard and organic mulch. She placed this material down in fall, and by early next spring, the grass was dead and the ground was bare and ready to be planted. She purchased plugs and small plants from Prairie Moon Nursery and planted them in the spring of 2021. Many of them bloomed and did well in their first year. This year, they filled in the empty spaces and grew larger and bloomed more prolifically. Karen saw a huge return in wildlife like bees, butterflies, birds and more.

Let's all try to restore native plants to our properties, if possible!

Here is the full planting list of what Karen planted:
- Coneflowers (Echinacea spp.)
- Rudbeckia spp. (Brown-eyed Susan, Black-eyed Susan, Cutleaf Coneflower)
- Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum)
- Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)
- Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
- Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa)
- New York Aster (Aster novi-belgii)
- Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum spp. - Narrow-leaf MM, Clustered MM)
- American Senna (Senna hebecarpa)
Good luck with your garden!

[ElliotPorter]

This gives me faith for the future, thank you!

[Voyajer.]

I've started introducing natives back into my family farm. There was already a few species established, like lyreleaf sage in the forest edge, and ironweed in the cattle fields since the cows don't touch them. But now I've established Plains Coreopsis and black eyed susan and especially the coreopsis has taken off all over in one year. I've also started some purple coneflower in milk jugs and distributed the seedlings around with some of the more rare milkweeds to the area.

[yeahminecraft]

I live in southern Wisconsin and a few years back we just decided to stop mowing our front lawn because of the rough terrain and a like 40ish year old hills oak that was getting large enough that it was getting in the way. So we just let it grow wild - the only things we planted was a lady fern and and a cinnamon fern, plus the flowers that were already in the adjacent garden. Now, the whole yard is basically a prairie and its so much nicer - its full of native goldenrod (of course lol), but there are a bunch of other natives too - cup plants, a royal catchfly that grew last year, even a sensitive fern grew wild in the shade, and two species of trilliums. I also planted a northern maidenhair fern under the oak tree. The only issue with it however is that leaving it alone a bunch if invasive bindweed, bishop’s weed, and creeping bellflower began to take over, and its really hard to get rid of. I’m going to try to really rip it all out this year but that stuff is aggressive as hell. And no, we planted none or those invasives, they spread from nearby

[linwong]

As someone from HK, I’m envious of how much space you guys get to grow stuff! I’ve always wanted to just do some sneaky native plant planting, but it’s difficult with so little available space. Even with pots, unless you have a balcony, it really doesn’t mean much for the wildlife.
Also there’s this horrible Mikania weed that’s been rapid taking over the mountain side I live on, and it’s been really sad watching it shade out all the trees over the years. Watching your videos where you help trees with these problems with Ivy/Bittersweet has been cathartic, but I’m really itching to just go out there and do it myself since no one is (it is dangerous though, as our slopes are very steep and I have no experience :( )
Anyways, really happy you popped up on my recommendations! It’s always lovely to learn more about nature, even if its not local to me :) Liked and Subbed!

[BenjaminGillespie-ukwm]

absolutely amazing what can be done and we should stop wasting water on lawns and instead help flowers

[botanicaltreasures]

Andrew, Fantastic transformation from turf to pollinator buffet! Looks great!🌿🌼🐝.Two years ago a tornado hit our neighborhood and took out some established trees leaving a lot of bare areas. My husband and I got permission to put in several flower gardens and some of our neighbors followed suit. Now the neighborhood looks a whole lot better and is much more pollinator friendly. I show the changes in my recent video. “After the Tornado, the Neighborhood Gardens.” One of my favorite ongoing projects is the Streamside garden. We were thrilled to see some native fish spawning in the stream this Spring pictured in our latest video “Streamside Symbiosis.”

[Bluestone]

Oh my gawd it’s the 300 perfect wii bowling guy

[exercisethemind]

This is really practical advice and an accessible suggestion for how average suburbanites can make a big difference in supporting biodiversity! Thank you!

[threeriversforge]

I haven't got much, but I'm still on the Homegrown National Park bandwagon! The more we do, the better.... and every little bit helps!

[CandicePeppers]

I hope to accomplish a larger flower garden for my vegetable and fruits next year.It’s amazing how much my garden improved by just adding new species of wildflowers in a different section of my garden then the previous year. I did pretty good this year learning how to grow zinnias, black eye Susan’s, mist flowers and bachelor buttons. I plan on combining these four kinds of wildflowers in other areas of my garden . My favorite part of gardening is seeing what my new flowers attract . I saw many different species of insects, bees, beetles, spiders, butterflies I never knew about.

I love my outdoor classroom!!!!

[rosemarymcbride]

did something similar but I played the long game. Whenever it was time to mow the lawn I would see what else besides grass had sprouted that I wanted to encourage. Each year the wildflowers would occupy a bit more space in the yard. This year all that encouragement paid off and the yard is full and now I only need to mow a few corridors so I can move about.

[veroniqueverstichelen]

Thank you...beautiful and interconnected with earth and all living beings 💚🤩

[davidb]

I've seen a number of your short videos, and must say that you do a great job of presenting interesting facts about trees and such, to the point that I, a very mechanical/electronics type of person now look out for them. Informative vids on almost any topic are always welcome onto my computer, and yours fit the bill.

[Thecastofthelast]

very cool! Karen is an awesome lady for working on this project! We did something similar in my family's backyard

[BOWULF]

Awesome and beautiful. This is what I want to do. My landlord said he wouldn't mind when I asked. It would help his property look nice if I want.

[SHEAdTeeVee]

Id love to do this in my small urban garden in downtown Philly. I'd love to know your suggestions on what to plant in my situation.

[L_MD_]

Add somewhere for wildlife to drink water in there! ❤ I always think of that, I’m a wildlife carer and on the summer we get so many animals suffering from dehydration 😢

[leahvogelsimpson]

I don't have a meadow perse but I have native wildflowers all around my house and in various other spots. Of course the cornflower have tried taking over but the coneflower, coreopsis etc are looking great right now. I had no idea I even had the coneflower it just came up out of nowhere.

[charliep]

I wish medians and other places like that did this

[Cherb]

Beautiful looking & awesome! Thanks!