Planting ideas for real conditions.

Browse free planting ideas labeled as planted, actively tested, regionally researched, or a design concept - so you know what each plan is based on.

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Plant a pollinator border that works.

A scaled 1-ft grid layout you can transfer to your bed with two strings and twenty minutes - exact plant positions, back/mid/front rows labeled, drawn to the size you'll actually plant.
Three bed shapes from the same plant palette - 10×6 ft rectangle, 6×6 ft corner, and 12×3 ft narrow strip - because most yards aren't a tidy rectangle, and the corner version is the one most front yards actually need.
A month-by-month bloom calendar - six straight months with something open, and never more than 5 days without a flower from May to November.

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Cover of A complete printable planting plan for a 10×6 ft native pollinator border in North Carolina

Style

Light

Bloom color

Design concept

The Easy Pollinator Border

Seven tough native perennials that keep something blooming from June to October. Plant it once in a sunny 10×6 ft bed; by year two it needs little more than one spring cutback.

Full sun Native

The Part-Shade Cottage Corner - planting plan for a 8 × 5 ft bed

Design concept

A soft, romantic 8×5 ft corner for spots with morning sun and afternoon shade. Hydrangea and Indian pink open the season, columbine and woodland phlox carry spring, and fall anemone lights up the shade when everything else fades.

Part shade Cottage

Design concept

The No-Fuss Mailbox Strip

A 12×3 ft strip for the hottest, driest spot you own - the mailbox, the driveway edge, the hellstrip. Six natives that handle reflected heat and never ask for the hose after year one.

Full sun Native

Design concept

The Good-Neighbor Screen

A living fence for a sunny property line - five evergreens in a staggered double row instead of one long hedge of identical trees. Mixed screens survive what monoculture rows don't: when disease or a bad winter takes one plant, you lose a tooth, not the whole smile. Eye-level privacy by year three; a 15-foot green wall by year six.

Full sun Mixed

Design concept

The Dry-Shade Screen

Dry shade under mature trees is the hardest assignment in southern gardening - every plant here is competing with a 60-foot oak for water. This screen is built from the evergreens that actually win that fight, tested under my own Raleigh canopy. Slower than the sunny version, but by year four it's a solid green room.

Shade Mixed

Design concept

The Native Foundation Bed

The foundation bed is the most-seen, least-loved planting in America: a row of sheared meatballs with two weeks of interest a year. This is the all-native answer - one evergreen anchor, an inkberry ribbon that stays below the windowsill, and native shrubs handing the bed to each other from March to November, with berries and bark carrying winter.

Full sun Native

Design concept

The Southern Classic Foundation Bed

The other foundation bed - for the front yard that wants gardenia perfume by the door and hydrangeas you can cut for the table. Whites, pinks, and purples on an evergreen backbone, with something in bloom from the first gardenia in May to the last camellia in December. Same rules as the native version: nothing blocks a window, nothing gets sheared into a meatball.

Full sun Mixed

Design concept

The Deer-Proof Border

Honest gardeners say "deer-resistant," not deer-proof - a hungry deer in February will sample anything once. But this border stacks the odds: aromatic foliage, tough textures, and architecture deer reliably skip, built on real shrub structure so the bed holds its shape in January, not just July. Blooms April through October, then finishes in amsonia gold and beautyberry purple.

Full sun Native

Design concept

The Easy Shade Garden

Shade isn't the problem - empty shade is. This 10×6 ft bed layers seven woodland plants so something is blooming under the trees from February (yes, February) to September, with evergreen ferns holding the floor all winter. Built for the bright-to-dappled shade on the north side of a house or under tall hardwoods.

Shade Mixed

Design concept

Dry Shade Border That Looks Designed

A 10 x 5 ft border for the dry shade under trees - built the way a designer would: evergreen structure first, a gold color echo running through it, and flowers as the accent rather than the point. It looks intentional in February and it looks intentional in August, because only one plant here ever goes dormant.

Shade Mixed

Design concept

Fragrant Mixed Border (Part Sun)

A 10 x 6 ft border for the sunniest part-sun spot you have (4-6 hours, morning sun ideally) - designed around scent the way most beds are designed around color. Woodland phlox opens the fragrance in April, the rose and catmint carry summer, summersweet saturates July, and flowering tobacco takes the evening shift. Plant it beside a path or under a window; fragrance you have to hike to is fragrance wasted.

Part shade Mixed

Design concept

Rose-Companion Pollinator Bed

A 10 x 6 ft full-sun bed built on a secret most rose gardens miss: bees can't use most roses. Doubled petals bury the pollen. Plant a single-flowered rose instead and it becomes a pollinator plant - then surround it with the classic companions that feed everything else from May to frost. Romance and ecology in the same bed, no compromise required.

Full sun Mixed

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The Easy Pollinator Border

The Part-Shade Cottage Corner

The No-Fuss Mailbox Strip

The Good-Neighbor Screen

The Dry-Shade Screen

The Native Foundation Bed

The Southern Classic Foundation Bed

The Deer-Proof Border

The Easy Shade Garden

Dry Shade Border That Looks Designed

Fragrant Mixed Border (Part Sun)

Rose-Companion Pollinator Bed

Can’t find a plan that fits?

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