It’s been a few weeks since Benjamin Vogt wrapped up his work on our front gardens, and we’re absolutely in love with the result. Neighbors have been excitedly popping by to watch the enormous dead spots in the lawn turn into an actual garden space, and we’ve had a lovely time educating about the importance of native plants.
While seemingly unimpressive now, these itty bitty plants will be thriving by next spring and living up to their full potential by year three. We learned SO much in the process of working with the pro, and we’re excited to care for these spaces in the years to come.
Our Next Native Garden
DIY Time!
After working with Benjamin on these first gardens, we decided to give it a go planting one ourselves. Many neighbors asked us how hard we thought it would be to do a comparable DIY version of what we had landscaped, and the initial answer was that we just didn’t know. The only way to learn is to try, so try we did!
The Process
The area we chose to plant has a mix of full shade, partial sun, and full sun spaces. Reneelynn took great care to purchase a wide variety of plants to accommodate this, and we laid out roughly one plant per square foot, taking into account the care instructions and future size. Tall stuff in the back, shorter stuff in the front, and sun loving things toward the south where there is less shade.
Then, we set to work with our bitty shovels, lovingly and painstakingly depositing each baby plant in its hole. This part took the longest, as the soil in this area is in pretty bad shape. We also haven’t gotten much rain in the past few weeks, so the ground was just very packed. No worries though, we gave each plant a good soak, and planting was done!
Final Results
The whole project from start to finish took about 5 hours – Approximately one hour of prepping, three hours for planning and planting, and another for placing our decorative items and tidying up.
We quickly tossed our landscape blocks in front of the space to serve as a border until we finish planning out how we want to build our pathways in the spring. It’s not fancy but serves as a great zero waste option to make the place feel more complete.
professional vs. Diy preference?
While working with Benjamin Vogt was an invaluable experience, there’s definitely an upside to DIY – mainly that it only cost about $250!
Given the extremely limited time and money we had to work with here, we’re very pleased with the results. We feel better prepared to chat with our neighbors about their native planting ventures having created a whole garden ourselves. Some folks around us are incredible gardeners, they simply haven’t worked with native plants. This was a great experience to have under our belts, and we’re excited to continue de-lawning the yard to plant native!
Let us help you decide what’s right for you!
Pros of working with a pro:
- Supports the work of local native gardening advocates
- Professional instructions leave you confident in caring for the garden in the long run
- Manual labor and prep work (ie chemical applications) are done for you by qualified professionals
Pros of doing it yourself:
- MUCH cheaper – You’re likely talking hundreds not thousands of dollars
- The satisfaction of having created something yourself
- Can operate on your own schedule and to your own taste