Complete novice gardener, need advice about starting a perennial butterfly garden

[Anonymous]

To me the beauty of a native plant garden is low maintenance. We rarely water ours unless there have been a full week with no rain; we never need to buy mulch for it, but we do have a leaf shredder and we toss the shredded leaves in all of our plant beds. If we have leftover compost after the veggie beds are set, we'll throw that in all the other beds too.

Here are some ideas about how to deal with color: https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/82846024/list/3-color-palettes-to-help-set-your-gardens-mood

I think your key will be in how you transition the colors and repeat colors and keep it looking natural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, first, thank you all for your suggestions! Of course after reading all of them, I now have even more questions and ideas for you all:

For the soil, I just bought top soil and compost to mix into the existing soil. Is investing in a leaf composter a good idea for the future? We have tons and tons of leaves every year a out property is basically in the middle of an oak forest. As for the watering, I guess I just assumed I'd do it manually every morning but now I will look into a ground hose system per a PP's suggestion.

What about mulch? When do I mulch? Right after planting or in the fall or next spring?

Agree (reluctantly) with everyone that I have too many plants. Here is what I am thinking now:

The plot is roughly a "V" shape. The center of it - the point of the "V" - is a large triangle. This triangle gets full sun but the two "arms" do not. One arm gets a little more sun than the other, but both get about 2-3 hours of direct sunlight in late morning and then dappled.

What I am thinking is putting all my yellows, oranges, reds, and splashes of purple in the middle. I've narrowed it down to: black eyed Susan, tickseed, blanket flower, and some purple coneflower and meadow blazing star. Maybe some helenium for late season color. I suppose I better add in 6 milkweed there, too..

Then on the arms (partial shade), I'll have blues, whites, and splashes of pinks. I'm thinking: bergamot, sweet William phlox, columbine, astilbes, and asters.. And bell flowers.. And maybe I'll throw a joe pye or two in the back.

How does that sound? Still too many different flowers? Will the sun-loving, warm colors in the middle look bad with the partial shade, cool colors flanking??

What say you all? Thanks for your tips... and patience

Patient gardener here. You don't need a leaf shredder, just pile them up in a corner somewhere and wait until Spring. The bottom of the pile will be nicely composted. I would agree that you need to carry the same colors throughout the garden or it will look disjointed. You want it to flow naturally. I have multiples of the same plant but I don't group them, rather I plant them in varying spots in the garden to keep the eye moving along. If you break up the color and keep it restricted to certain parts of the garden it is less pleasing to the eye. Once plants are established you will be abe to ease up on the watering but until then you need to have a plan like a drip system. You can mulch in either Spring or Fall but you should mulch. Make sure you mix the soil ammendment in with the clay, don't just dig a hole and put the topsoil and composted manure in. You will get the 'bathtub' effect and drown your plant plus it's not good for the roots. Completely dig up the whole area and mix the composted manure, mulched leaves or superfine and existing clay soil into the entire space. Only after that do you dig your holes.

[Anonymous]

PP here again. Be sure to consider varying shades of green on all the foliage because you will not always have blooms. Make sure there are different greens and textures as well. Pulmonaria does very well in the shade garden and has beautiful foliage, as does japanese painted fern. Do not expect to finish this in one season. You should wait to see how well these plants do next to each other before you go too far. Some plants require more sun, some more water. It will depend entirely on your space so you will be moving things around. A plant may struggle the first year and come back full and beautiful the next. Remember, they are establishing a root system initially so don't be discourage if they don't 'take off' right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, first, thank you all for your suggestions! Of course after reading all of them, I now have even more questions and ideas for you all:

For the soil, I just bought top soil and compost to mix into the existing soil. Is investing in a leaf composter a good idea for the future? We have tons and tons of leaves every year a out property is basically in the middle of an oak forest. As for the watering, I guess I just assumed I'd do it manually every morning but now I will look into a ground hose system per a PP's suggestion.

What about mulch? When do I mulch? Right after planting or in the fall or next spring?

Agree (reluctantly) with everyone that I have too many plants. Here is what I am thinking now:

The plot is roughly a "V" shape. The center of it - the point of the "V" - is a large triangle. This triangle gets full sun but the two "arms" do not. One arm gets a little more sun than the other, but both get about 2-3 hours of direct sunlight in late morning and then dappled.

What I am thinking is putting all my yellows, oranges, reds, and splashes of purple in the middle. I've narrowed it down to: black eyed Susan, tickseed, blanket flower, and some purple coneflower and meadow blazing star. Maybe some helenium for late season color. I suppose I better add in 6 milkweed there, too..

Then on the arms (partial shade), I'll have blues, whites, and splashes of pinks. I'm thinking: bergamot, sweet William phlox, columbine, astilbes, and asters.. And bell flowers.. And maybe I'll throw a joe pye or two in the back.

How does that sound? Still too many different flowers? Will the sun-loving, warm colors in the middle look bad with the partial shade, cool colors flanking??

What say you all? Thanks for your tips... and patience

Patient gardener here. You don't need a leaf shredder, just pile them up in a corner somewhere and wait until Spring. The bottom of the pile will be nicely composted. I would agree that you need to carry the same colors throughout the garden or it will look disjointed. You want it to flow naturally. I have multiples of the same plant but I don't group them, rather I plant them in varying spots in the garden to keep the eye moving along. If you break up the color and keep it restricted to certain parts of the garden it is less pleasing to the eye. Once plants are established you will be abe to ease up on the watering but until then you need to have a plan like a drip system. You can mulch in either Spring or Fall but you should mulch. Make sure you mix the soil ammendment in with the clay, don't just dig a hole and put the topsoil and composted manure in. You will get the 'bathtub' effect and drown your plant plus it's not good for the roots. Completely dig up the whole area and mix the composted manure, mulched leaves or superfine and existing clay soil into the entire space. Only after that do you dig your holes.

Patient Gardener, thank you again due taking the time to help me. Now I'm thinking that perhaps I should just start with the part that gets full sun - the middle triangle. I'm really most drawn to the warm colors, the yellows, orange and reds of the plants I listed above. I think it would look dramatic to mix in purples then. Coneflower and blazing star, as I said earlier, but now maybe I'll add in splashes of purple salvia or speedwell...

None of these plants are super tall though, so would it again be too much if I put compass plants mixed in with native grasses (like Indian grass?) and more blazing star in the back? Any other nice tall natives in that color scheme I could add?

Now, onto the shaded half. What can I do with it, if it would look bad to change the colors? It's too shaded for most of the flowers in the middle. Any astilbes that would look nice? Right now, there's just hostas, wild geranium (that's now a scraggly) and wild ginger growing there - BORING!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Patient gardener here. You don't need a leaf shredder, just pile them up in a corner somewhere and wait until Spring. The bottom of the pile will be nicely composted. I would agree that you need to carry the same colors throughout the garden or it will look disjointed. You want it to flow naturally. I have multiples of the same plant but I don't group them, rather I plant them in varying spots in the garden to keep the eye moving along. If you break up the color and keep it restricted to certain parts of the garden it is less pleasing to the eye. Once plants are established you will be abe to ease up on the watering but until then you need to have a plan like a drip system. You can mulch in either Spring or Fall but you should mulch. Make sure you mix the soil ammendment in with the clay, don't just dig a hole and put the topsoil and composted manure in. You will get the 'bathtub' effect and drown your plant plus it's not good for the roots. Completely dig up the whole area and mix the composted manure, mulched leaves or superfine and existing clay soil into the entire space. Only after that do you dig your holes.

Less patient gardener here.

I find it interesting that you don't group same plants together--that seems to be so much against the general advice unless the plant is quite large on its own. Groups of three and all that. Particularly smaller plants. Plus many plants look very lonely without others of their kind around. I do vary colors around the garden. But perhaps you meant you might make a group of three of smaller plants together and then repeat that grouping elsewhere, while larger plants might stand on their own in a spot and then are repeated elsewhere.

Would be very interested in your further views on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, first, thank you all for your suggestions! Of course after reading all of them, I now have even more questions and ideas for you all:

For the soil, I just bought top soil and compost to mix into the existing soil. Is investing in a leaf composter a good idea for the future? We have tons and tons of leaves every year a out property is basically in the middle of an oak forest. As for the watering, I guess I just assumed I'd do it manually every morning but now I will look into a ground hose system per a PP's suggestion.

What about mulch? When do I mulch? Right after planting or in the fall or next spring?

Agree (reluctantly) with everyone that I have too many plants. Here is what I am thinking now:

The plot is roughly a "V" shape. The center of it - the point of the "V" - is a large triangle. This triangle gets full sun but the two "arms" do not. One arm gets a little more sun than the other, but both get about 2-3 hours of direct sunlight in late morning and then dappled.

What I am thinking is putting all my yellows, oranges, reds, and splashes of purple in the middle. I've narrowed it down to: black eyed Susan, tickseed, blanket flower, and some purple coneflower and meadow blazing star. Maybe some helenium for late season color. I suppose I better add in 6 milkweed there, too..

Then on the arms (partial shade), I'll have blues, whites, and splashes of pinks. I'm thinking: bergamot, sweet William phlox, columbine, astilbes, and asters.. And bell flowers.. And maybe I'll throw a joe pye or two in the back.

How does that sound? Still too many different flowers? Will the sun-loving, warm colors in the middle look bad with the partial shade, cool colors flanking??

What say you all? Thanks for your tips... and patience

Patient gardener here. You don't need a leaf shredder, just pile them up in a corner somewhere and wait until Spring. The bottom of the pile will be nicely composted. I would agree that you need to carry the same colors throughout the garden or it will look disjointed. You want it to flow naturally. I have multiples of the same plant but I don't group them, rather I plant them in varying spots in the garden to keep the eye moving along. If you break up the color and keep it restricted to certain parts of the garden it is less pleasing to the eye. Once plants are established you will be abe to ease up on the watering but until then you need to have a plan like a drip system. You can mulch in either Spring or Fall but you should mulch. Make sure you mix the soil ammendment in with the clay, don't just dig a hole and put the topsoil and composted manure in. You will get the 'bathtub' effect and drown your plant plus it's not good for the roots. Completely dig up the whole area and mix the composted manure, mulched leaves or superfine and existing clay soil into the entire space. Only after that do you dig your holes.

Patient Gardener, thank you again due taking the time to help me. Now I'm thinking that perhaps I should just start with the part that gets full sun - the middle triangle. I'm really most drawn to the warm colors, the yellows, orange and reds of the plants I listed above. I think it would look dramatic to mix in purples then. Coneflower and blazing star, as I said earlier, but now maybe I'll add in splashes of purple salvia or speedwell...

None of these plants are super tall though, so would it again be too much if I put compass plants mixed in with native grasses (like Indian grass?) and more blazing star in the back? Any other nice tall natives in that color scheme I could add?

Now, onto the shaded half. What can I do with it, if it would look bad to change the colors? It's too shaded for most of the flowers in the middle. Any astilbes that would look nice? Right now, there's just hostas, wild geranium (that's now a scraggly) and wild ginger growing there - BORING!

I'd get rid of the hosta, definitely. Not native and attract slugs, which I find loathsome, particularly when they find their way to my porch. Perhaps the geraniums and ginger could be trimmed and edited.

Have you thought about bushes? There are nice natives that come in dwarf form these days. Some that have a dwarf form and are said to be attractive to butterflies include buttonbush, clethra (summersweet), and viburnum. Baptisia is not quite a shrub but it grows large and is a butterfly host.

Also, if you like yellow consider golden rod or golden alexander.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Patient gardener here. You don't need a leaf shredder, just pile them up in a corner somewhere and wait until Spring. The bottom of the pile will be nicely composted. I would agree that you need to carry the same colors throughout the garden or it will look disjointed. You want it to flow naturally. I have multiples of the same plant but I don't group them, rather I plant them in varying spots in the garden to keep the eye moving along. If you break up the color and keep it restricted to certain parts of the garden it is less pleasing to the eye. Once plants are established you will be abe to ease up on the watering but until then you need to have a plan like a drip system. You can mulch in either Spring or Fall but you should mulch. Make sure you mix the soil ammendment in with the clay, don't just dig a hole and put the topsoil and composted manure in. You will get the 'bathtub' effect and drown your plant plus it's not good for the roots. Completely dig up the whole area and mix the composted manure, mulched leaves or superfine and existing clay soil into the entire space. Only after that do you dig your holes.

Less patient gardener here.

I find it interesting that you don't group same plants together--that seems to be so much against the general advice unless the plant is quite large on its own. Groups of three and all that. Particularly smaller plants. Plus many plants look very lonely without others of their kind around. I do vary colors around the garden. But perhaps you meant you might make a group of three of smaller plants together and then repeat that grouping elsewhere, while larger plants might stand on their own in a spot and then are repeated elsewhere.

Would be very interested in your further views on this.

Yes, I group the smaller ones and have the larger plants stand on their own and place them a few feet apart with some smaller bunches of the same plants in between. I do this because I want a three season garden and I find it's easier to keep the color going and to hide the spring plants if the large plants are spaced out. I still use repetition and patterns but I have a lot of space to cover so it works in my garden. I have a few garden beds but the biggest is 50 ft by 10 ft so the big plants are a good size. I have about 60 liriope lined along the border and then my perennials behind that but I make sure there's room to plant ornamental kale and peppers in the fall. Beyond the perennials I have a tulip bed where I plant 1000 tulips. I also have some begonias and ferns hanging from the trees in the shaded area in the back of the garden and I've turned some old tree stumps that were too heavy to move out, into a little fairy vilage.

[Anonymous]

Patient gardener, your garden sounds absolutely fabulous. Love the fairyland idea. Also very big--just a city garden here. But will think about how I could apply the notion of spacing larger plants with a group of smaller plants in between.

Thanks for sharing!