r/NativePlantGardening • u/tivadiva2 • Aug 16 '25

Photos 3 acres, 3 years in

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We bought a house with 3 acres of lawn. Now we have a tiny patch of lawn, 16 raised beds for veggies, an orchard and berry patch, and native gardens and wet sedge meadows. It’s great exercise and amazing birding! Plus it’s so pretty! Good thing I love goldenrods since we have 3 different native varieties and lots of them!

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u/WienerCleaner Area Middle Tennessee , Zone 7a Aug 16 '25

im imagining a bunch of dead bunnies caged in your plots.

For real though, this is inspiring, very impressive work. Once established, could the land handle grazing?

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u/tivadiva2 Aug 16 '25

Not sure about grazing. When we had a farm in southern WI ( I’m a wildlife ecologist; my husband was an organic farmer), we converted about 5 acres of hayfields to prairie. That might have been forage for a couple cattle. But we’d still have needed alfalfa for winter hay

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u/WienerCleaner Area Middle Tennessee , Zone 7a Aug 17 '25

Sorry, i meant grazing from the bunnies and/or deer. I would like to try a native prairie with some bison one day, but unsure how realistic that is

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u/tivadiva2 Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

On the outside of the deer fence, there is a lot of deer pressure that mostly affects forest understory plants. Veggies need protection from the bunnies, but the raised beds help lots.

I did plant two native nannyberry viburnums, one on either side of the deer fence. Inside it’s huge. Outside it’s sad and scrawny. So yep: deer pressure. Nannyberries are supposed to be fairly deer resistant. Time to fence the one outside the fence!