Native Garden Maintenance Tips

You’ve finally installed your native plant garden and your garden will be providing food and habitat for wildlife in no time. Here are some tips for caring for your native plants:

Weeding

Weeding is important for new plantings because weeds compete for nutrients and water. They can also grow tall and shade out new plants. Unfortunately, weeds are a permanent issue in the garden. Have you noticed that there are no bare spots in nature? Weed seeds fly in on a breeze or are deposited by birds, and each time you disturb the soil anywhere, you turn up dormant seeds that sprout when conditions are right. There’s just no way around weeds!

The best way to manage weeds is by making time each week to weed the garden. Half an hour on a Sunday afternoon, fifteen minutes twice a week or any amount of time that works for you will help you stay on top of the weeds. On the plus side, regular weeding will allow you to observe your plants as they change through the season and will let you spot small problems before they become big problems; it is well worth the effort.

Watering

Most native plants require less water and can survive on rainfall once they are established, but it is important to water your new plants regularly for the first 1-2 years.  Some native plants are more suited to wet areas and may need consistent watering, so keep that in mind when selecting plants for your garden.

Pruning

In a perfect world, native plants would be left up throughout the winter so bees could nest in the hollow stems and birds could pick at the fruit and seeds, but if your native plants are in the front garden, you may need to trim them or cut them back altogether in the fall. Tall herbaceous plants, like goldenrod and Joe Pye weed, will eventually flop over during the winter months. These plants (and other plants that bloom in late summer/early fall) can be pruned in early summer to make them shorter. Alternatively, they can be allowed to grow to their full height and be cut back to about 12 inches in late fall. Other plants, like tall grasses, can be cut back the following spring (preferably when temperatures are consistently above 50F). I leave pretty much every plant up through the winter except dead, dry milkweed plants in the front garden.

Trees and shrubs (AKA woody perennials) can be pruned in winter while they are still dormant. Inspect the branches as you remove them to avoid damaging any insect cocoons or egg cases. The native Carolina Mantis will often attach its egg case to a woody branch and the baby mantises (nymphs) will hatch out of it in summer. Native praying mantises are natural pest control and are great to have in the garden; they are also rare, so its important not to damage the egg cases.

Brush pile

It’s helpful to have an area in your yard where you can throw weeds, pruned branches, and plant scraps. Many butterflies and other insects overwinter in leaves and other plant “debris,” so bagging these up and disposing of them is not a good idea. This is why it is also important to leave the leaves in the fall. If you want a tidy front garden, throw the leaves into your brush pile or in your vegetable garden beds or anywhere that is not a garbage bag! The only exception to this rule is when you are dealing with invasive plants or noxious weeds like poison ivy that should be disposed of. Eventually, the bottom of the brush pile will become soil that can be used in other parts of the garden, so if you have invasive or noxious seeds/roots in there, you will spread them everywhere!

Dividing

Some plants grow vigorously and need to be divided. The general rule of thumb is to divide spring blooming plants in the fall and fall blooming plants in the spring. This way you don’t interrupt the blooming process and plants have time to recover. Divide by digging the plant up (deep enough to get all the root mass) and use a knife or a shovel to slice the root mass into large chunks leaving at least one shoot per chunk. Replant immediately and water well. I have gotten away with dividing creeping phlox in the past by simply slicing into the plant with a shovel and scooping the plant out, but it’s probably a safer bet to dig up the entire plant to divide. You may need extra soil to fill in the large hole left from removing the original plant.

Keep in mind that some plants do not tolerate being divided, so look up the plant in question before you try this technique. Also, try to divide plants on cool, cloudy days to avoid frying the plants in the sun. Dividing takes a bit of work but you get free plants so that is a bonus!

Managing expectations

Most of the beautiful flowering native plants in your garden will die back and disappear completely over the winter and this means your garden will be mostly bare during this season. If this bothers you, you can incorporate some native evergreen (inkberry, arborvitae, mountain laurel, certain ferns and sedges) and semi-evergreen plants or plants that provide winter interest (winterberry, chokeberry, red osier dogwood, etc) into your garden. Remember that native gardens are not static; they follow the seasons and that is part of their beauty.

This article is also posted on the ReWild Long Island Blog.

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