August 30, 2023
Are you spending too many hours fertilizing, watering, and maintaining your manicured lawn and landscape full of ornamental plants? (I know I was.)
I jumped right in the deep end.
My journey of ditching my 1950's idea of what my yard ought to look like, started with me identifying and removing all invasive species of plant. Then I started an experiment that would change my life forever. I let my yard, mostly my gardens, get “messy”, and I think you should let your gardens get messy too!
The main point of letting your yard, or at least your garden, get messy, is to see what grows. You will be amazed at how many different plants will pop up. The best plant to wish for is one that is native to your area. Native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees not only provide habitat for declining wildlife, but they also reduce urban heat islands, increase carbon sequestration (that's fancy speak for putting carbon back in the ground), manage stormwater runoff (which aids in preventing floods) and don’t need toxic chemicals to thrive. Which is why they make for a wonderfully messy garden.
I live in Virginia, specifically in a geographical area called the Coastal Plain. But the land on which I live, all 10,006 square feet of it, has soil that is a mix of sandy/ fast draining and sticky clay-type. This combo makes my yard capable of sustaining both wetland and forest plants.
The majority of plants that I had popping up at first were trees. This was thanks to the adorable Grey Squirrel which actually is one of nature's best gardeners. I noticed little oak trees here and there, including Pin Oak, White Oak, and Northern Red Oak. The second most popular tree found was the Silver Maple. Not sure why, but I love Maple trees. I ended up letting two of them grow where I found them.
In order to appease my neighbors, I continued to mow my front lawn and in order to keep my kids happy, I kept a section in the backyard mowed as well. But for two straight years now, I've had what I call, my suburban meadow. ☺️ Here I found all sorts of tall growing flowers. There's Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), Horseweed (Erigeron canadensis), and Late Boneset (Eupatorium serotinum), all of which are native to the area and grow to at least five feet tall.
What I found
Every day I found a new species of plant that I hadn't noticed before. Then I started to get more and more animal species, visiting or setting up shop around my yard. One day as I was walking around, enjoying all of the lush vegetation I had growing, I all of a sudden stopped dead in my tracks and said to myself, "Oh, Shit!". Not in a bad way, but in a light bulb 💡 type of way.
I had just realized that all of my new wildlife guests were here because they liked my messy garden. The birds, the grasshoppers, the bumblebees, and even the moths and butterflies were living it up in this messy garden and were almost non-existent in the grass just a few feet away which still took up the majority of my yard.
After that realization, I did what any citizen naturalist would do. I started researching why and then came up with more questions to answer and found out more whys for those ones and then questioned something else and so on it went. You get the idea.
Skipping to the end, I discovered that wildlife prefers wild places, at least, places that look wild. It's not enough to simply add native plants to a polished 1950s-style yard. Your yard, or garden in this case, needs to look like the surrounding native habitat in order to truly be beneficial to the local ecosystem.
Today, when I walk into my messy garden, the symphony of colors and textures that surround me, evoke a sense of tranquility and harmony that only nature can provide. I marvel at the delicate balance that exists in our intricate ecosystem.
It reminds me of the importance of preserving and protecting our natural habitats. The changes I've made to my tiny yard may seem insignificant, but they contribute immensely to the delicate tapestry of life on Earth. If more tiny yards were turned into home-grown nature preserves, biodiversity could be regenerated on a grand scale.
I invite you to let your garden get messy. The moment you start on this journey, you'll be just a hop, skip, and a jump away from being able to kiss those boring, labor-intensive afternoons goodbye, and say hello to a greener planet and a fatter wallet, all of which can lead to a healthier mental state like it did for me.
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