Grow guide
Thanks for choosing to plant natives, your garden’s success is a win for your entire local ecosystem, so here’s some tips on how to get started and some optional methods for maintenance in the years to come so you can make the most of your garden's beauty while also keeping it as low maintenance and resilient as possible.
Plant Spacing
Here we can learn a lot by studying mature prairies in their natural state. In nature, bare soil doesn’t exist for long. Whenever a patch of soil isn’t densely shaded by surrounding plants or covered in leaf litter/mulch, aka the situation your freshly weeded new garden bed finds itself in, it’s quickly filled in with unwanted (and often invasive) plants. Disturbing the soil by weeding and digging/planting also stirs up the bank of weed seeds and brings them to the surface where they can sprout. When designing a perennial garden bed, it's important to place your seedlings closer together, about 1 foot apart, and they’ll form a densely woven mat that will greatly prevent weed seeds from being able to germinate or take root after blowing into your garden. So pack them in, let them support and protect each other while forming their own 'living mulch'. Relying on a thick layer of woodchips for mulch instead is a never-ending chore and expense.
While woodchip mulch is popular, it’s not ideal for sun-loving native perennials. Heavy layers of mulch:
-Slow soil warming in spring
-Retain too much moisture, leaving soil overly soggy
-Prevent airflow
-Smother beneficial soil microbes and fungi
-Block natural seedling regeneration
A very thin 1-inch layer after planting can help while seedlings get established, but don’t keep reapplying year after year. Let the plants themselves take over the job of protecting the soil, it's what they evolved to do.
Based on what’s visible to us above ground, you’d assume native plants grow incredibly slowly compared to the common horticultural plants we’re used to, but all the while they’re growing extensive root systems that give them the resiliency and drought tolerance they’re famous for. For example, lead plant (Amorpha canescens) on year 3 might still look relatively small above the surface, but below ground its roots could already be 5 feet deep and wide. This slow above-ground growth is another reason why it’s greatly recommended to space your native plant seedlings about 1 foot apart and not space based on their size at maturity like conventionally taught to avoid leaving awkward looking and vulnerable gaps which invite in weeds.
Watering Guidelines
For the first 4 weeks after planting, water your natives at least 3 times per week unless there’s sufficient rainfall. If planting during the summer in full sun, check soil moisture levels daily.
After that, reduce watering to about once a week for another 4 weeks, ensuring the top 2 inches of soil are moist, if rain doesn’t provide enough moisture. Once established, native plants typically thrive without extra watering thanks to their deep root systems. Once established, most of the plants we sell grow best in drier soil and watering frequently has adverse affects. We will very occasionally water in cases of extreme drought.
Weeding Advice:
In the first couple of years, expect to do some weeding while your plants are still filling in and building up the soil's seed bank with desirable, native seeds (yay! free plants!). We recommend cutting weeds with scissors whenever possible instead of pulling them. That way, you avoid disturbing the soil and waking up even more weed seeds. Many of the most annoying weeds are annuals, meaning they’ll die at the end of the season anyway, so just snip off the tops before they go to seed, and you’ll save yourself trouble next year.
As your garden matures and the natives knit together into a dense living carpet, weeding gets easier and less frequent. Most of the work happens early on, a well designed garden bed should hardly need much weeding at all come year 3. If you find yourself continually weeding some spots over and over - it needs more plants!
The Chelsea Chop
The “Chelsea Chop” is a pruning technique where you cut back certain plants by about one third to one half in late May/early June (right around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show in the UK, hence the name). You can chop all the stems or just a portion (like the front or sides) to create a layered look. It's a really easy way to control size, prevent flopping and stagger bloom times which means more beauty for you, and more nectar for pollinators across the season.
This is especially helpful for tall pants that bloom later in the season like:
-Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium spp.)
-New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)
-Goldenrods (Solidago spp.)
-Hyssop (Agastache spp.)
-Bee balm (Monarda spp.)
-Ironweed (Vernonia spp.)
When to Cut Back:
Traditional advice on cutting back plants in spring often focuses on minimizing damage vs maximizing benefits— like “wait until temperatures are consistently above 60°F.” But the ecosystem around your garden isn’t following a calendar.
For example, fireflies don't start emerging until July and many native bees build nests in the hollow stems of second-year growth. That means those old stems provide crucial habitat for pollinators and beneficial insects throughout the growing season and beyond. Our recommendation is to only cut back plants when necessary for aesthetics or function in more highly visible areas. Otherwise, leave as much as the old growth standing as possible through fall and winter.
Benefits of leaving stems standing:
-Provides structure and winter interest to your garden
-Supports pollinators, beneficial insects, and small wildlife
-Protects the soil and roots from harsh weather
-Encourages natural seed dispersal and self-renewal
If you do trim in spring, wait until you see insect activity. Leave at least 6" of stem standing, then break up the rest and scatter it at the base of your plants, no need to haul it away.