Garden Design Basics
Designing a great native plant garden is just like designing a traditional annual or perennial garden:
One of our garden designs showing the basics—plants in “drifts”, short plants on borders and tall plants in middle, complimentary blooms, varying textures, flowers and grasses mixed together but also in visually impactful groups.
Plants grouped together or in blended “drifts”
Short plants on borders, tall plants in middle/back
Complimentary colors—grouping plants that bloom at the same time
Varying textures, including soft-textured grasses
Having something blooming each month with winter foliage, too (four-season interest)
Some type of edging to create clearly defined, easy-to-maintain edges
Mulch to reduce weeds
There are some differences to consider when designing a garden with native plants:
You can plant a traditional “block planting” style garden, with big blocks of the same plant. Or you can plant the newer “naturalistic” style of gardens which mix and blend plants together, especially mixing in grasses.
We prefer the naturalistic style because when a species blooms it blooms throughout the whole garden instead of in one block. It’s also a more flexible and relaxed style of gardening, taking into account the fact that these species will naturally try to spread and mix together eventually. It’s a personal taste, however, and you should plant what you want to plant, where you want to plant it, and add or remove plants over time.
Many traditional perennials are bred to stay in one spot—they don’t spread very much. On the other hand, most native plants spread by seed or roots (rhizomes).
Some species barely spread at all, and some spread a lot. You might want a tidier garden with species that stay in place and don’t spread very much, or you might want a garden with taller plants that spread and mix a lot.
If you are just getting started, you might want to avoid tall plants that spread. You can always add them later but they are difficult to remove. You can also have multiple gardens on your land—some with shorter, tidier plants, and some with taller plants that spread.
Most American gardens have a “sea of mulch” look. It’s up to you what you want, but if you want your garden to fill out within a year or two you’ll need to plant about 1 plant every 12-15 inches. That’s a lot of plants!
Follow our in-depth instructions for designing and installing a native plant garden. This is useful info for both beginners and garden experts!
Use one of our free garden designs or customize your own.
Pre-order plants at our Online Native Plant Store. We ship nationwide. You can also visit our greenhouse or purchase plants at our Twin Cities Plant Sales.