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.

The plants

• 1×

  Yaupon Holly Ilex vomitoria

  The native evergreen corner anchor: sculptural, drought-proof, and loaded with red winter berries. Swap: 'Little Gem' magnolia if you have the room and the patience.

  13.5 ft
• 3×

  Inkberry 'Gem Box' Ilex glabra 'Gem Box'

  A native boxwood look-alike that never needs shearing and never outgrows the windowsill.

  2.5 ft
• 2×

  Oakleaf Hydrangea 'Ruby Slippers' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Ruby Slippers'

  Native, compact, working four seasons: June cones, scarlet October leaves, cinnamon winter bark.

  3.5 ft
• 2×

  Summersweet 'Hummingbird' Clethra alnifolia 'Hummingbird'

  Fragrant white July spires that pull in every bee and butterfly on the street, right in the midsummer gap.

  2.8 ft
• 2×

  'Little Henry' Sweetspire Itea virginica 'Little Henry'

  Fragrant white May blooms and some of the best red fall color of any native shrub.

  3 ft
• 4×

  Aromatic Aster Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'October Skies'

  Smothers itself in blue exactly when the rest of the street goes brown.

  2 ft
• 5×

  Moss phlox Phlox subulata

  The March welcome mat; an evergreen edge the rest of the year.

  6 in