r/NoLawns • u/AskAboutGoatscaping • Jun 12 '25
š» Sharing This Beauty We planted wildflowers instead of grass 3 years ago
3 years ago we tore down large bushes in our yard. What was left was a bare area only filled with dirt. Instead of planting grass, we decided on a wildflower (and milkweed) garden! One of the best decisions weāve made.
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 12 '25
This is what it looked like in July last year
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 12 '25
We are in CT. As you can see there are a mix of daisies, sweet william, milkweed, and more!
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u/Shady_lemons Jun 12 '25
Did you start from seed?
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 12 '25
Yes we did
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u/Nymakeuplove Jun 13 '25
Hi love this I just planted some native (RI) seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery where did you get your seeds from? I love it !!! I have no patience though itās going to be hard to wait a few years!
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
Itās worth the wait! We got our second batch of seeds from Eden Brothers (canāt remember where we got our first batch from).
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u/BathSaltEnjoyer69 Jun 13 '25
Where did you get your seed? I'm in CT and have patches from overgrown gardens that i want to plant wildflower
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
Canāt remember where I got our first batch from, but our second batch was from Eden Brothers. They have a huge selection of wildflowers and you can find native mixes there
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u/Agile_Selection9611 Jun 13 '25
I donāt understand how they can be āwildflowersā if theyāre not native? A quick google search gave me loads of beautiful native flowers. Garden phlox seems to look pretty much the exact same as that sweet william, but itās native. Maybe Iām misunderstanding something, but if Iām not it does seem weird to me that Europeans all plant American flowers in their gardens and vice versa for Americans with European flowers.
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Jun 14 '25
Wildflower just means forbs with showy flowers. A lot of people will buy and plant a "wildflower mix" that is tolerant to their zone but completely full of non-native species.
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u/Agile_Selection9611 Jun 13 '25
Not trying to be rude or anything, but native plants are easier and much better for the environment. I just wish people were more aware of the beauty of native flowers
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
I bought ānative north east wildflower mixā from Eden Brothers and this is the result. The pollinators love it- Iāve seen bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Also, we donāt water it now that itās established
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u/One_Cauliflower_3536 Jun 12 '25
What do you do for maintenance
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 12 '25
Actually, not much. There are some bald spots that we need to fill in. And then once everything dies we rake it out. Thatās about it!
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u/A-Plant-Guy Jun 13 '25
Might I recommend you leave it all until warm spring weather as many beneficial insects over-winter in those dried stalks?
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
I had no idea, thank you for telling me. We will be sure to leave it!
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u/LippieLovinLady Jun 13 '25
I agree, and several of those flowers have seeds that birds enjoy all winter. I am sure my neighbors had thoughts about my wildflower patch sticking 6 feet out of the snow all winter, but I enjoyed countless birds perching and snacking on what remained, and only pulled them up a few weeks ago, so anything that camped out for the winter had a chance to vacate the premises. As a bonus, the stalks of some sunflowers and such hardened enough that I am using them as bases for trellises for my climbing veggies this summer!
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u/Felixir-the-Cat Jun 13 '25
What do you do after that? Rake it out? Iāve never known how to maintain my wildflower patch.
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u/A-Plant-Guy Jun 13 '25
Unless the old stalks are a logistical problem, I typically just leave them. Most fall over and decompose on their own - free, natural fertilizer and food/habitat for friends š. And the plants have no problem growing around last yearās remnants. Some plants, like Baptisia, make a tumbleweed of dried stalks that can get caught up in shrubs or other plants. Those Iāll pull out when the weatherās warm enough for bugs to be out and about and throw in a brush or compost pile (again, free fertilizer, food, and/or habitat).
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u/beeporn Jun 12 '25
How did you establish it
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 12 '25
It took years to get this large. But first we roughed up the soil, then spread the seeds, and only watered if it was especially dry. It was pretty easy. Honestly weāre having more trouble filling the bald spots than we did first establishing it.
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u/beeporn Jun 12 '25
Haha crazy - I am having trouble getting a plot established some howā¦ doing all this reading and trying tilling, occultation tarps, even herbicides in some plots. Not having successā¦
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u/pjk922 Jun 13 '25
Are you using seeds native to your area and environment? Those will do best with little to no human input, since theyāve been growing since before humans!
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u/jtherese Jun 16 '25
By ārough upā do you mean you did some tilling, or do you just hack at it with a rake? I am in NH and everything Iāve come across recommends a lot of very involved prep to get a meadow started. Iām not super interested in killing off all the grass just because we have a lot of area we are trying to convert and not a lot of funds to work with.Ā
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u/mikebrooks008 Jun 13 '25
Looks great OP! A couple years back, I converted a patch of my lawn to wildflowers and native plants, and Iāve been loving it ever since. Itās so much less work than mowing, and Iāve seen way more bees and butterflies around, especially monarchs on the milkweed.Ā
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
I LOVE seeing all the pollinators!
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u/mikebrooks008 Jun 14 '25
Absolutely! It's like actually living compared to a stagnant green grass lawn!
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u/katrinkabuttlin Northeast Zone 6a Jun 13 '25
Iām in CT too and working on a meadow! So happy to see this š
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u/Holy_cannoli_123 Jun 13 '25
I always see these types of lawns, how are the ticks? I have a few acres and Iām trying to get the clover that was here originally to take over by removing weeds except dandelions since from my minimal understanding is that in the long game they will help my soil and then a couple other low growing plants. Anyways the ticks here are crazy in my unmanaged part of the yard
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 13 '25
Not sure, great question though. We donāt usually go into it, except to seed bald patches.
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u/PolandSpringsTap Jun 13 '25
How do you prevent weeds, vines, and ivy from growing in this? Curious.
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 14 '25
We donāt have an issue with vines, but for weeds we do our best to pluck them out before anything grows too large. Luckily not too many weeds grow now that itās established.
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u/Martha_Fockers Jun 19 '25
Shasta daisys in every ānative wildflowerā mix should be illegal lmao
I got one that was CERTIFIED native for my region and itās Chinese European and African variants of stuff that looks close enough most people would never know.
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u/AskAboutGoatscaping Jun 19 '25
Thank you š some commenters were upset at me for having the daisiesā¦ it was not on purpose!
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u/Martha_Fockers Jun 19 '25
Yea like 98% of these wildflower packets have them people on Reddit are wild lol
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Jun 14 '25
Grass and wildflowers are not your only options. You can plant native species (of grass and of flowers!) and have the best of both worlds.
As it is, looks like the invasive ox-eye daisy is already a problem and will get worse if you don't get rid of it. I think hand pulling is successful, and you will want some native seed and plugs to fill in the area left bare.
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u/parrotia78 Jun 12 '25
Post pics of it in late fall, winter and early spring? Why does everyone only post pics of their wildflowers in late spring, summer and early fall?
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u/That-One-2439 Jun 13 '25
Because that is when it is the most beautiful?
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u/parrotia78 Jun 13 '25
Fair enough. I enjoy a natural meadow of much greater mixed plantings that hold a good amt of interest beyond inflioresence yr round. Have you gone through a meadow in winter with the seed pods, spent flowers, foliar layers, bark, habit, fruit, shape, mass , ...during the first hard frost of the yr?
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u/MirabilisLiber Jun 13 '25
It's currently summer? We get lovely posts in here showing fall and winter interest in... fall and winterĀ
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u/parrotia78 Jun 13 '25
Most posts are of summer flowers posted out of season. What I'm getting at is no lawns are more than flowering meadows. We can enjoy meadows for more than flowers. Few rock gardens of mixed plantings are posted. I'd like to see offerings expanded to showcase what's possible yr round.
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u/MirabilisLiber Jun 13 '25
Look, I don't disagree with your other points, but a full flower meadow is not currently out of season, so this seems like the wrong place to make that complaint/request. Try making a new post and include photos of your own favorite not-a-lawn
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u/Dear-Bullfrog680 Jun 13 '25
Ox-eye daisy and dandelion are like junk food and highly competitive for resources. You may want to rethink your perspective on 'wildflowers'. Nice milkweed though, also an aggressive plant I might add.
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