My Home Garden

The Site

This small urban plot is my design playground. I’ve loaded it up with native plants, experiments in ecology, and smart solutions for climate resiliency.

I based this garden on the idea of an opening in the woods. So trees and large shrubs around the perimeter open to a meadow and rain garden on either side of the center path. Because I want this garden to be welcoming, most plants close to the sidewalk grow no more than a couple feet tall.

Click on the italicized plant names on this page to go to more information about each.

  • In zone 6a
  • Full sun to part shade
  • Clay soil, slightly alkaline
  • Mesic (medium moist) soil, but drier on meadow hill
asclepias tuberosa with wasp 2

The Plants

The majority of plants in this garden are native to Indiana. Native plants:

  • can handle our increasingly weird weather with little coddling.
  • are generally the best food source for the insects at the base of the food web.
  • welcome pollinators and other wildlife.
  • increase both the biodiversity and robustness of the garden.

My native plants include both straight species (like Carex brevior) and cultivated varieties (like Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red.’) I’ve also included a few non-natives.

Rain garden with shrubs and flowers.

The Rain Garden

The rain garden is a shallow depression designed to hold water during a rain event and prevent it from running off into the street. To increase its ability to hold and then absorb water, I planted it with tough, deep-rooted natives.

As a result, this rain garden allows the ground to soak up even large amounts of rain, usually within 24 hours. My sump pump and a section of my gutters empty into the rain garden.

Below the rain garden, I’ve planted a young tree and a mixed planting that can take the full sun.

The Walkways

Along the main walk leading to the front door, I wanted tough, heat-tolerant plants that would stay tidy and hold back taller plants behind them. So I repeated some short but sturdy natives all along the sides.

The other path don’t take much foot traffic, so I was able to use miniclover for these. This quick-growing groundcover stays low, takes mowing well, and actually improves the soil. Although it’s not a long-lived plant, I don’t mind sowing more seed each spring to fill out any thin patches.

Round purple flowers above grasses.

The Meadow Grasses

The meadow is split by a clover path into an upper and lower meadow. In the lower meadow, a common witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) serves as a focal point.

Even though the upper meadow contains grasses and forbs, I also use it to grow a few herbs and vegetables. The birdbath is a thrifted glass bowl set on top of an upside-down, buried patio table.

My meadow is combination of grasses, sedges, low-growing groundcovers, and forbs (leafy, non-grass plants).

Grasses and sedges do the hard work of choking out weeds, holding the soil, and giving the flowering plants support. So in every prairie or meadow planting, they should make up at least 50% of the plants.

I use warm-season grasses mixed with cool-season ones. Cool-season grasses and sedges green up as early as February, long before larger warm-season grasses start growing. As a result, they can start suppressing the weeds much earlier in the season.

Red glass birdbath in meadow.

More Meadow Plants

Low-growing groundcovers weave in and out of taller plants, further suppressing weeds.

Flowering forbs and bulbs in this garden are mostly perennials, but I sow annuals from seed to fill in blank spots. I list them here roughly in the order they bloom.

Three newly planted shrubs.

The Shrub Border

For more winter structure, I surrounded the house with shrubs. Then I underplanted them with low-growing perennials and sedge that will fill in to create living mulch.

Orange and yellow daffodil flower and purple violets in a meadow.

Just Keep Planting

Even though the garden looks packed full of plants, I have room for more! So every year I add a few more flowering plants to the meadow or rain garden. Then in fall, I add spring-blooming bulbs to another section.

Great gardens take time. Most plants don’t reach maturity until they are four or five years old. And then plants may die or reseed or suddenly change some other way. So no matter where you are gardening, just keep adding plants!