FAQS
Can you just do the work for me?
I love teaching. My desire is to come alongside you as a guide and teacher so that you can create and maintain your own beautiful space, whether it's just a few pots on the patio or a whole perennial bed. Often, I do that by working alongside you in a coaching session. I want to help you acquire the knowledge, skills, confidence, and satisfaction of making your own space. I also strongly believe in placemaking, what one author describes as “deliberately sending your roots deep into a place, like a tree. It means allowing yourself to be nourished by a place even as you shape it for the better.” That will not happen if you simply pay someone else to plop a ready-made landscape onto your property. It will not be truly yours. You will derive much greater pride and joy, and you will learn much more about yourself and the world around you, in a garden you've dug and tended with your own hands.
Why native plants?
Are non-native plants evil?
Native plants are well-adapted to our local environmental conditions, including drought, heavy clay soil, long winters, local fauna, and temperature extremes. Natives provide important resources for pollinators and wildlife, contributing to a more diverse and sustainable ecosystem. Native plants enhance biodiversity and create a vibrant, natural, and beautiful landscape most suited to our ecoregion. There is a movement to banish all non-native plants from our gardens and to not only use native plants, but plants that are native only to our very specific and limited ecoregion. There are good reasons for that, but I believe it's unhelpful and unnecessary to be moralistic or militant about it. After all, we don't just garden for ecological reasons, we also garden for ourselves, to create our own beautiful, highly personal spaces. While some non-native plants are highly problematic (especially those that are invasive, out-competing and destroying native ecosystems, such as burning bush, tiger lily, butterfly bush, Chinese wisteria, or Japanese blood grass), many others provide healthy and productive benefits, including beauty, biodiversity, and wildlife support. I believe that increasing the number and diversity of native species in your landscape is an important goal, shooting for at least 70% native plants. But that still leaves plenty of space for non-natives. Many non-natives will play very well with native plants. As a general rule, don't just a buy a random plant at the garden center because it has pretty flowers. It's always important to know what you're planting, why your'e planting it, how it will interact with other plants and wildlife, and what its potential drawbacks and benefits might be.
What do you mean by "garden"?
In the United States, we usually use three words to talk about the land around our homes. A yard is just the piece of property, usually with a lawn, a patio, maybe a swing set or a fire pit. We usually use the word landscape when we're describing a designed area of flowers, shrubs, trees, mulch and other decorative elements. When most Americans hear the word garden, they usually think along the lines of a vegetable garden or a botanical garden. I prefer how the British use the words "garden" and "gardening" more so than "landscape" and "landscaping" for a few reasons. First, landscaping is often associated with something professional landscape companies do. It can feel daunting, expensive, and out of reach to a lot of people. Second, landscaping can describe something static and artificial. Throw a boulder here, some random flowers over there, and a ton of wood mulch everywhere, and you might have something called "landscaping" but you don't have a garden. As one garden writer has said: "One big difference between English and American gardens is how the American perceives the garden as a status symbol and the English native sees the garden more as an enjoyable oasis to putter around in.... Another difference is that Americans call it their 'yard'...and not a 'garden' like the British. The British are all about the love of gardening and being horticulturalists. Americans are more about 'curb appeal' and how their yard will appear to the neighbors."
Where can I buy native plants or learn more about them?
Keep an eye out at local independent garden centers, which all carry a limited selection of natives and nativars. Be aware that garden centers often carry plants similar to native species that are actually not native. For example, many garden centers carry European pasque flowers (pulsatilla vulgrais) but not South Dakota native ones (pulsaitta patens). For the largest selection of true native perennials for our region, you'll need to order online from reputable nurseries that specialize in native plants. Here are a few: Siouxland Prairie Farms Carla's Flower Farm New Leaf Natives MNL Corp Prairie Legacy Inc Prairie Nursery Prairie Moon Nursery Izel Native Plants US Perennials Windflower Natives
How can I have a maintenance-free garden?
You can't! All gardens, no matter how large or small, native or non-native, will need at least some ocassional maintenance to be healthy and beautiful. Even some of the most common low-maintenance perennials (daylilies, garden phlox, ornamental grasses, etc.) will degrade in both health and beauty if not occasionally deadheaded, pruned, divided, etc. If you have a garden, you should plan to do at least some weeding, mulching, pruning, etc. Turf lawns, which are often believed to be low-maintenance, are actually quite needy and fussy. They require a super high level of frequent, expensive, and time-consuming inputs like mowing, fertilizing, watering, treating for weeds, dethatching, aerating, reseeding, etc. Less lawn is one way to reduce maintenance and increase beauty and biodiversity.
Are native plants weedy & messy?
When not properly cared for, native gardens can begin to look weedy and messy. I frequently see so-called "native" gardens that are essentially an ugly, disorganized mess. That is not the fault of the native plants, but of a lazy gardener. Here's the thing: that's true of any plant you put in your landscape! Daylilies, one of the most common non-native perennial flowers in Sioux Falls, often look messy and unsightly when not properly maintained. And a typical grass lawn that's left to its own devices will quickly turn into a patchy field of weeds without regular care. The keys to success for a beautiful native garden are good design, thoughtful planning, placing the right plants in the right place, regular editing, and proper ongoing maintenance. When these are kept in mind, a native garden can look just as beautiful and artistic as a non-native one. Remember, native does not equal no maintenance.