Right Plant, Right Place
Note: this was originally shared in the Virginia Native Plant Society’s Facebook Discussion Group, and was written about a garden installation in Fairfax County.
Thought I’d share a bit of my first native plant pollinator garden journey as I admire the transition from summer’s last blooms to the first hints of fall. I made nearly every possible mistake along the way, and figured some of you might enjoy laughing along with me as I learn.
Back in the spring, this began as a small effort to remove invasive Wintercreeper vines on either side of the driveway entrance. After losing three trees in this area to this horrible killer last year, I decided to yank out as much as I could after a good rain. I wasn’t planning to do anything else. But after a year of battling invasives on this property, I quickly realized that nature abhors a vacuum, and invasives love disturbance, so my best bet was to plant something.
Tangled mess of invasive Wintercreeper, Vinca, and English Ivy.
I was determined for it to be native, and to focus on plants benefiting pollinators. I didn’t have a big budget, and figured I’d spend about $100. (You can start laughing now.) The total area is about 270 square feet.
Problem #2, after the invasives, is that we’re overrun with deer, as the rest of the property is wooded and part of a wildlife corridor. So I had to choose things that were deer resistant. Across the street we have a neighbor with a beautiful native garden and certified wildlife habitat, so I carefully studied their plants while walking by and paid attention to what the deer were (I thought) leaving alone.
On any given day, six to eight deer browse the property.
The driveway faces east and is lined by trees on both sides, so I carefully planned my pollinator-friendly plant list for the shady side and the sunny side. I planned to supplement my purchases with a few of some abundant natives transplanted from our woods. In late April, I eagerly went to the big Alexandria native plant sale and came back with almost everything on my list, purchasing only one of each, even though I had heard not to do this, because of my tiny budget. Spent more than I had planned, of course. But not too much more. Then realized I’d need to mulch to help keep more invasives from moving in. So off to the hardware store, and now I’m 50% over budget.
Started planting my new treasures, only to discover that there was virtually nothing to plant into — the ground alongside the drive was 50+ years of compacted gravel, with almost no soil to speak of. Undeterred, I planted the tiny new plants anyway. Then mulched. It looked very tidy…and, pretty pathetic, to be honest. Far too few plants for such a large area. For all my work and planning and eager anticipation, I felt very little satisfaction.
April 2022. First attempt — tidy, but unsatisfying. (Yes, I kept the daffodils.)
To make matters worse, within the first week, the deer came along and ate ALL of my newly purchased plants. Chewed them right to the mulch. Even Rudbeckia, which people swore deer didn’t eat. And the only thing they didn’t eat, the tiny twig of Asclepia tuberosa, began to yellow and die.
The deer ate everything down to nubs.
Needless to say, I was feeling more than a little defeated. The old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished” was running around in my head, and I confess I briefly contemplated going out and getting some azaleas and being done with it.
But I was more than just a little bit jealous of all the lovely photos shared in this group, and determined not to have this native garden be one big failure…
Somewhere around this time, the Virginia Native Plant Swap group crossed my radar. I was assured that, with patience, the chewed plants would grow back. I began swapping and gratefully receiving to gather multiples of the singlets that I had purchased, so I could fill in and create a mass of each species. I’ve met the most wonderful people and quickly realized that this is my tribe — and I’m so glad I didn’t give up, or I’d never have met all of you.
I still had to worry about the deer, though, so I thought about netting or fencing but learned they can be problematic for birds and other wildlife. And then l learned about Liquid Fence. What a godsend!! Off to the hardware store again! And lo and behold, it works. Highly recommend!
So, things started to grow. Spring turned into summer, and every morning as I walked my dog down the drive, I looked forward to what might be new in the garden. I couldn’t wait for the first flowers and the arrival of the pollinators, big and small. And then I realized mistake #57…I had mis-estimated the northward path of the summer sun. “Sunny side” plants weren’t getting enough sun, and “Shady side” plants were withering. So yes, things were growing…but very little was thriving. It turns out I don’t have a sunny side and a shady side, I have a sunny front half and a shady back half, on both sides. As Charlie Brown would say, “Oh, brother!”
Yes, I can hear you now…”Right plant, right place.”
So now I knew I needed to dig almost everything up and switch sides. UGH. But — the gravel! I decided that if I was going to go to all that effort, I wanted to do it right. I wanted something that would endure, something to be proud of, something that was truly going to provide the ecosystem services that I dreamed of creating.
I was going to have to bring in a truckload of soil, and a truckload of mulch.
And it was just going to cost what it was going to cost. No swapping my way into this fix.
I measured the beds, and using an online calculator I figured out how many cubic yards of each I needed to do the job right. One side had a drop off I needed to fill in, so I added more for that. From this group I learned that Virginia Fines Mulch was what would best suit my young plantings. I called around, researched quality online, stressed over conflicting reviews, and finally ended up finding what I needed. Off to Merrifield’s I went. Not the cheapest, but reputable quality topsoil and mulch. I brought with me a list of plants that if they had the straight species, I was going to add to begin creating density.
I will say that, despite the original budget being blown by a factor of 20, things got decidedly better from here.
The trucks came the weekend of July 4th. I had a narrow window between stormy days to dig up the plants, move 3.5 cubic yards of soil by wheelbarrow, replant the plants and plant all the new plants, water them in, and move 2.5 cubic yards of Virginia Fines mulch by wheelbarrow and spread by hand. I asked the consultant at Merrifield what would happen if my load of topsoil got wet before I moved it. She looked at me with a very serious face and said, “That would be bad.”
Although moving the soil was a beast, planting into nice, fluffy topsoil was a dream. No more prying out enough pieces of gravel with my Hori Hori knife to make a hole barely big enough for a tiny root ball. This part was actually starting to feel fun! And the Virginia Fines mulch was absolutely beautiful stuff — light and easy to load and spread, and SO much nicer than the shredded hardwood we’ve been using for years.
July 2022. Much better!
When it was all done, I finally felt the sense of accomplishment I had hoped for. And because several of the newly purchased plants were blooming, the pollinators began showing up immediately! Over the next few weeks I saw so many kinds of bees!! From the biggest, fattest bumblebees to the teeniest, tiniest little bees that are so small you only see them when the sunlight glances off their wings as they move from flower to flower. I had heard that there were thousands of native bee species in Virginia, but I had never been blessed to see so many. It made me so, SO happy!!!
Each day as I stood out there watering the new plantings — I knew I needed to baby them as I got a late start in the season — neighbors walking by would all stop to compliment the new garden space. I explained to each one that this was a native pollinator garden and a monarch waystation, and that all the plants are native to our part of Virginia (Fairfax County). Figured it couldn’t hurt to plant a few seeds of inspiration.
October 2022. Officially certified!
And, despite my new additions, I still had a fairly large empty area right by the street. So, more swapping, gifting, and gratefully receiving. And rather than spending time weeding the gravel drive, I’ve been allowing things to grow until I can ID them — and I’ve joyously discovered some amazing volunteers. Who knew?!? Asters, goldenrods, wingstem, white avens, Indian tobacco, and even American beautyberry seedlings have been showing up, and I’ve been carefully transplanting them into the pollinator garden. And the sedges — oh my, I have fallen in love with sedges!! I so delight in discovering a new one and confirming it is native. Like the lovely Cyperus compressus I discovered just last week! (Yes, we have a ton of aggressive non-native ones here as well, so I have to be careful.)
October 2022. It was all worth it!
Things are finally filling in, and it’s time to just watch and keep learning. Undoubtedly next spring will bring moves, thinning, and a few new additions. Like painting a never ending work of art.
The payoff.
My first monarch caterpillars brought me more giddy joy than I can remember feeling in a long time, especially during these challenging last two years. I would do it all over again (though hopefully with fewer trials and errors!) just to see them, and to feel like I’m making a small difference with this space. Happy planting!!
Newly hatched, wings still unfolding. Such beauty!