In our last post I mentioned that we had joined the Less Lawn More Life challenge and had chosen a site. This photo shows a portion of former knotweed expanse that will be our location for this challenge.
As part of the Week 3 Challenge, Wild Ones shared this webinar: Native Plants Planted Right. I took some notes broken into three parts, similar to Loris Damerow's presentation itself, on planning, prepping, and planting, and I will outline them below.
Today, I viewed a pair of videos featuring Doug Tallamy on a YouTube channel that focused on planning and planting native plants in the home garden. This one was filmed at the Mt. Cuba Center. This one was filmed at the University of Delaware Botanic Garden. Each of them gave an overview of his rationale for individuals becoming conservationists in their home landscape as well as some detailed information on how to do so.
With these guidelines, I feel a bit better prepared to tackle the Week 3 Challenge (Plant Some Natives) in an informed manner rather than just planting some natives willy nilly. My next post should be the plan and maybe some progress reports.
Plan:
- Draw or sketch a plan to scale
- Consider the needs of plants: soil, light, moisture levels
- Plan for layers and drifts (odd numbers, three or five)
- Include a variety of bloom times
- Incorporate keystone and host plants
Prep:
- Lasagna method: Cardboard and chips/mulch (easy but slow)
- Dig up sod (fast but harder)
- Specific to us: knotweed shoot and rhizome removal
Plant:
- Don't overwork the soil
- Consider the plant's size when grown for placement
- Dig wide, but shallow hole
- Water deeply: first year once or twice a week
- Mulch lightly 2" or 3" inches away from stem
- Label each plant: physical label, sketch, and/or spreadsheet
Post Planting:
- Weed early and often
- Observe over time: notes or journal
- Is every plant labeled?
- Remember "sleep, creep, leap" for the first three years
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