The layout
- Little Bluestem grass · ×3
- Aromatic Aster · ×4
- Narrowleaf mountain mint · ×3
- Nodding onion · ×5
- Moss phlox · ×7
- Foxglove beardtongue · ×3
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.
What blooms when
The plants
-
3×Little Bluestem grass Schizachyrium scoparium
Steel-blue in summer, copper all winter - the strip's backbone.
3 ft -
4×Aromatic Aster Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'October Skies'
Smothers itself in bloom exactly when the neighborhood goes brown.
2 ft -
3×Narrowleaf mountain mint Pycnanthemum tenuifolium
Counts more pollinator species per square foot than anything else I grow.
2.5 ft -
5×Nodding onion Allium cernuum
Deer and voles leave it alone - useful at the street edge.
12 in -
7×Moss phlox Phlox subulata
The March welcome mat; evergreen mat the rest of the year.
6 in -
3×Foxglove beardtongue Penstemon digitalis
Bridges the May gap with white bells before the summer natives wake up - bees and hummingbirds work it hard. Stays upright in lean, dry soil without staking.
3 ft
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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.
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.
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.