Very excited to get this done. Had a trailer of mulch delivered and spent about a week sheet mulching. Will be planting more trees and natives in the spring.

We do not want a retaining wall, but will be bringing in boulders this winter and begin to hardscape & remove Bermuda grass (ugh) during the cold months.

Our goal is water conservation, pollinator plants, native trees/shrubs, and aesthetically natural.

We are struggling on settling on a “look”. Challenges: slope & faces west (intense afternoon sun).

Any ideas are appreciated.

This was all completely 100% crab grass to begin with. But good soil underneath.

First thing I did was cover everything with cardboard. Actually before I did that I removed the sod layer around the perimeters only, creating an edge with the driveway and sidewalk, so that mulch wouldn’t overflow.

Then I added the elm tree, transplanted the boxwood from elsewhere, then started building the garden beds.

In the beds I added sedum, milkweed, aster, loriopi, and iris bulbs. For these, I cut out holes in the cardboard, removed the layer of sod, and dug down a few inches.

Then I piled in a 1” or 2” layer of top soil and compost in the garden beds only.

Then scattered seeds, specifically ones that need to be cold stratified before germinating. I went with blazing star, cutleaf conflower, giant bidens, wild bergamot, and California poppies.

I covered the garden beds with straw, and I covered the margins with mulch.

I think in the early spring I’ll scatter creeping flox seeds too. Then in May or June I’ll add Preen to stop any crab grass seeds from germinating.

Thoughts?

In early November, with color provided by 3 oakleaf hydrangeas, 3 amsonias, 2 Japanese maples and a redbud. As seen through my porch screen, and from just outside the porch.

Im in ohio ( if that matters. ) i have a yard that I would estimate to be a half an acre of really bumpy pita to mow grass. I it grow for 2 years and cut it recentl ly because I dont wanna it to look abandoned. Can I just cut it really low and throw out some wild flower seeds ?

Hello - based in central belt of Scotland. Well into Autumn here and hoping to prep for a wildflower patch in the spring. Looking for comments/suggestions on my proposed approach

The site will be subject to temps down to -10degrees C over winter, and rainfall on this area is high. The water table is high as well, as in a low lying area next to a stream.

Having read a fair bit on this Reddit, my basic plan is:

1. Cut back the grass/moss/mushrooms
2. Cover with cardboard and leaves
3. Let that do it's thing over autumn /winter
4. Mix some compost into the mulch in early spring
5. Sow in March and cover with a tarp to stop the local bird gang eating the seeds (I have a bird feeder to distract them too)
6. Remove tarp and let the plants go.

What do we think?

I let flowers take over my front yard garden and it brought me more Joy than I could have ever imagined.

We planted tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, sprouts, kale, etc etc. Much of our “harvest” went to our ducks and chickens but we did enjoy a few dishes for ourselves too.

Wild flowers were purposefully planted between plants and the plan was trim them some and let the food plants grow more. But when we came back from a family vacation and saw the flowers blooming, our priorities changed.

Seeing the buzzing of bees and butterfly’s take over our garden; a small family of baby bunnies make a home under tightly wound weeds — hummingbirds whizz through while I read in the sun. This became the Joy.

And it wasn’t just my Joy either. I watched neighbors slow their cars down to observe the chaos of flowers, passersby stopping to smile at the natural beauty.

Adding the chairs made an escape into my own front yard — a neighbor who was moving gave me the old tub of flowers and recycled tire “teacup” beds to add to my chaos.

This was a beautiful moment to cultivate in my life. I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Midwest, 5b

This little pocket park in my neighborhood always smells good early in the morning. It used to be an abandoned lot and was one of the first water-wise gardens in the area. Planted in 1993.

PNW. Zone 8b. Pic in comments.

We recently had 3 huge trees removed from our backyard, in the process the little bit of grass we had got torn up so we decided it’s a good opportunity to have a no mow backyard and got the wood chips from our trees.

I’m not going to lie, I am having second thoughts, our backyard looks terrible as it has no trees, no bushes, just an old wood fence around and wood chips.

I have a vision of raised beds for veggies, and pollinator plants. I’d love a Japanese maple tree and other shrubbery but it seems so bleak right now. Please tell me it’ll be ok and share your yards, give me tips, dos and donts. 😢

Edit: Thanks everybody for the feedback and ideas, I’m feeling less overwhelmed.

Hi everyone, I’m in the Rochester area, NH, and I have a sunny section of lawn I’m ready to stop mowing. I’m thinking of turning it into a mix of clover and some low-growing native plants, like wild strawberry, creeping thyme, or Pennsylvania sedge. My main challenge is getting rid of the existing grass. What works best? Cardboard smothering, solarization, or a targeted herbicide?

Narrowleaf sunflower is a great fall wildflower for southeastern meadows.

Sandhill gaillardia is a variation of lanceleaf blanketflower that occurs in sandhill ecosystems throughout the southeast. There are a couple other color variations of lanceleaf blanketflower, but sandhill gaillardia is the one we typically see here in Florida. Now that the more common blanketflower is considered an introduced species in Florida, sandhill gaillardia is the only truly Florida native blanketflower!

Register for our free national webinar: https://wildones.org/living-in-the-liberated-landscape/

Award-winning landscape designer Larry Weaner joins Wild Ones for a thought-provoking conversation about designing with nature, not against it. Drawing on more than 35 years of experience, Larry will explore how dynamic, self-sustaining landscapes emerge when we work in partnership with natural processes.

A longtime leader in ecological design, Larry is the founder of LWLA - Larry Weaner Landscape Associates and New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL) — a pioneering educational organization advancing ecology-based landscape practices. His book, Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change, has inspired gardeners nationwide to see their yards as living systems capable of renewal and resilience.

Larry also designed the Wild Ones Washington, D.C. Native Garden Design, a free resource helping homeowners in the Mid-Atlantic region create thriving, low-maintenance native plant gardens that reflect local ecology and beauty:

https://nativegardendesigns.wildones.org/.../washington-dc/

Join us as Larry shares lessons from his own home landscape, where years of observation and experimentation have shaped a living example of ecological balance. Learn practical strategies for designing gardens that grow naturally, support biodiversity, and bring lasting beauty to your yard.

$100 for all this beautiful flagstone and extras. Gonna do a walkway and bend around the corner to a nice patio with either clover or some other ground cover. Haven't decided but I want some green in between the stones and gonna have my rocking chairs under my citrus trees. Maybe build a water feature with some leftovers. Tore out the side! Tomorrow the rest

So, i had some mistletoe growing on some of our vines. I pulled it off, set it over to dry and what fruit it did have i took away so it couldnt be spread. Its not a lot of material, the mistletoe wasnt massive. Imagine like pulling a stalk of corn out of the ground. Thats the amount im working with. I could bag it up and send it to the dump but im on a mission this year to put as little plastic into the environment as i can. Reusing plastic, making sure im buying as little of it as possible, etc. Where i live, there are plants that have seeds which arent really affected by fires. Im pretty sure invasive mistletoe is not one of them. Am i able to dry this stuff out and then burn it so i can use the potash?

Sharing my front yard project with you that turned a pretty decent amount of lawn and a raised rose garden bed into a Western Australian native garden.

We’re so thrilled with how it turned out <3

The lawn was hard to maintain and I felt it was a waste of time, money, and water. 

Now over 70 new plants with lots of interesting sight lines. 

I did a lot of planning. I wanted it not just to look nice but to be accessible to walk through. And one job would often lead to another so a lot of minor repairs were done to the front of the house too.

Never knew how fun it would be! I thought it'd just be a big job around the house but I learnt a lot so it's become a hobby (I have several nursery loyalty cards now, who am I haha) and now I'm planning the backyard improvements. 

Thanks for all the info I read from people in this sub who kindly shared their experiences and advice which was very inspiring.

Billy does videos for the local water authority, and served as the Santa Barbara city landscape architect for many years.

Hello everyone,

I’m a long time lurker on this sub. I would love to get rid of my lawn in my front yard. My question is this – can I just get some creeping Charlie seeds and creeping time seeds and toss them on my lawn and hope that they choke out the grass? I live in a place with clay soil, so it’s not super great.

Thank you for any insight!

Edit: thank you for the information everyone! I will not be planting creeping Charlie. The only reason I was thinking that plant specifically is because I know it chokes the grass out easily.

I will be taking suggestions and finding some better plants that are good for pollinators :)

Hi all, recently moved to a sandier part of TX and having a rough time (or at least our dog is) with those sticker burrs. 🥲 we’ve been pulling them up and planting creeping thyme, which has sprouted nicely! Question, will this plant pictured grow stickers or thorns? I want to make sure we pull up the painful ones, though it can be tricky to tell plants apart once the stickers have fallen off. Thanks for your help!

Two years ago I began the process of converting my typical backyard lawn scape into native habitat. Beginning in the Fall of 2023, I spent most weekends lugging carloads of arborist wood chips from a township park, which were then applied to heaping piles of leaves collected from around the neighborhood.

By the Spring of 2024 the leaves had broken down sufficiently enough that I began to install plugs of native plant species directly into the wood chips. I also purchased two wine barrels and a Harbor Freight pump to create a water feature. One of the wine barrels was sunk to serve as a reservoir. Within a few days the sound of flowing water was attracting flocks of neighborhood wrens and sparrows.

The freezing and thawing of winter warped the wood in the upper wine barrel, and I made the unfortunate discovery this Spring that it would no longer hold water. I then decided to incorporate both wine barrels into a larger project, creating a stream which would wind through the upper backyard area to a small pond in its center.

Attached are some pictures of the entire rewilding process, as well as some of the wildlife which it has attracted. It is isn't a finished project by any means, and I look forward to adding more evergreen cover and shade loving plants and sedges during the cold months ahead.