Order in the garden: Landscaping tips for the reluctant native plant gardener

June Bailey White

Special to the Tallahassee Democrat

Masses of Fringed Campion and Indian Pinks in a Tallahassee native plant garden.

We have all been educated about the environmental benefits of using native plants in the landscape.

Even so, some gardeners who like a more traditional, ordered landscape style may still be reluctant to plant native perennials because of the uncontrolled, carefree look of many native plant gardens.

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But you can have an orderly, neat looking garden of native plants if you simply follow traditional landscaping guidelines and force your plants to follow the rules too.

1. Plant in groups. Instead of having a hodgepodge of all different kinds of plants mixed together, mass or group plants of the same variety. Alternate these masses in a pleasing arrangement and repeat the groupings throughout the flower bed. Don’t let them mix.

2. Keep edges neat between lawn and flower beds. The simple, monotonous chore of edging with a sharp tool can give a comforting feeling of maintaining control.

Mass planting of Coontie palms, mulched with live oak leaves and edged with resurrection fern in a Tallahassee garden.

3. Plant or place a border around flower beds. This will give a tidy, ordered look to the garden even when the flowers within the border have finished blooming and are going to seed. Blue Eyed Grass and some native ferns make a good substitute for non-native mondo grass. Or you can edge with resurrection fern. After a storm you can scavenge fallen branches from oak and pecan trees covered with this beautiful epiphytic fern.

Blue-eyed grass edges a winding path in the garden.

4. Mulch and control weeds. Use a razor knife to cut cardboard to fit around your plant masses and pile leaves or pine straw on top. Use any mulch you can get to cover the cardboard and the bare ground, but try to use the same material (pine straw, live oak leaves, or wood chips) for the topmost layer for a consistent look.

5. Last but most important: plant native trees. For every popular non-native tree for sale in nurseries there is a far better native tree that will do the same job in the landscape — lovely flowers in spring, welcome shade in summer, brilliant leaf color in fall, and a graceful shape in winter.

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