PLAN YOUR PROJECT
Design Your Project Selecting An Area Choose Your Plants
Design Your Project
This guide discusses site preparation, installation and management for three types of designed landscapes: gardens, hedgerows, and meadows. The four case studies documented here include various examples of all of these project types. Within each case study or on the resources page, you can download example landscape designs for each project type. You can also download our recommended plant lists and work with an ecological landscape designer to create a design for your specific site. And of course, you can create your own design!
Before you dive into design, it’s important to note that projects should be designed to fit your site - not the other way around. Read more about site selection here.
Gardens, in this guide, refer to small planted areas (less than ~1000 square feet) that are installed using potted plants or plugs. Gardens might be found in urban or rural environments, or anything in between. They can include a mix of perennials, annuals, grasses, shrubs, and small trees. The possibilities for beauty and diversity are endless.
Example Garden Designs
Urban Garden Case Study - Kingston
Hedgerows are often found at the edges of fields or the boundaries between open areas. Usually long and narrow in shape (8-12 feet wide and up to hundreds of feet long), they incorporate a foundation of trees and shrubs, underplanted with perennials, grasses and other small plants, to maximize diversity and pollinator services. Consider planting a hedgerow along your driveway, at the edge of your property, or as a privacy screen wherever it’s needed.
Example Hedgerow Designs
Pollinator Habitat Design: Some Key Principles
Mass your Plants
It can be difficult, especially with a small space or limited budget, to figure out how to do the most good. No matter your site’s size or shape, be sure to plant in groups, or masses, of at least five individuals of each species, rather than single specimens of many different species. Larger masses are even better! Pollinators rely on large stands of flowers, where they can forage from flower to flower, to provide enough sustenance to fuel their flight. Seeded meadows take care of this for you - a well-prepared and well-seeded meadow should offer dozens to hundreds of plants of each species when mature.
American plum (Prunus americana) in flower, credit:Dan Mullin via flickr
Meadows are open areas filled with flowering plants and grasses. They are a great choice to replace lawns, hayfields, or former agricultural areas. They must be mowed regularly (once every 1-3 years once mature) so they typically don’t include trees or shrubs. The meadows described in this guide are grown from seed, which is sown by hand or using tractor-mounted equipment (read more about meadow installation).
This stand of white meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) at Overmountain Conservation Area in Columbia County, is a wonderful natural example of massing.
Stagger Bloom Times
Pollinator gardens aren’t just for summer! Pollinators, in all their diversity, forage for pollen from the very beginning of spring until the tail end of fall. Take the time to select plants with a long season of overlapping bloom times. With enough space, you can aim to have some flowers available throughout the entire season. Early bloomers, such as willows and violets, and late blooming flowers, such as asters and goldenrods, are especially important.
Make a Plan - Not Just a Design
Once you’ve solidified your design ideas, but before breaking ground on your project, it’s important to plan ahead for site preparation, installation, and long-term project management. Many site preparation techniques take a season or more, and plants and seed mixes often need to be ordered in advance. After installation, brand-new plantings can easily become overwhelmed with weeds and invasive species, or mowed down by deer and rodents, without appropriate management. At the outset, plan for watering, weeding and replacing plants as needed in future years; and in seeded meadows, make a mowing plan for the seeded area as well as a buffer around the meadow edge. Taking time at the outset to plan your project’s scope, timeline and long-term management will set you and your pollinator partners up for success.
Learn More: Site Preparation
Learn More: Project Management
DESIGN RESOURCES
Interested in DIY design? These books provide excellent information on ecological landscape design for a variety of spaces. They’re appropriate for both adventurous beginners and experienced gardeners.
The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden (Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy, 2014)
Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design (Benjamin Vogt, 2023). Benjamin Vogt also offers online native garden design classes at Monarch Gardens.
Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing plant communities for resilient landscapes (Thomas Rainer and Claudia West, 2015)
Garden Revolution: How our landscapes can be a source of environmental change (Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher, 2016)
Urban & Suburban Meadows: Bringing Meadowscaping to Big and Small Spaces (Catherine B. Zimmerman, 2010)
Looking for professional support? Check out these directories of landscape and garden professionals. You can also ask your local native plant nursery for suggestions - many have relationships with designers or offer design services themselves.