How to Start a Native Plant Bed for Under $200

A bed of plants that evolved in your region is the lowest-upkeep garden you can make. Once established, native perennials and grasses have deep roots tuned to local rainfall and soil, so they need far less watering than lawn or annual bedding, and no fertilizer. Many also feed local bees, butterflies and birds, which most garden-center plants don’t.

“Native” doesn’t mean any plant from North America. A prairie plant from Illinois may sulk in coastal Georgia. The point is to pick plants from your own region, adapted to your soil and rain.

Find plants for your area

Start with these free lookups. Most let you search by ZIP code or state.

• The National Audubon Society’s native plants database lists plants by ZIP code and shows which birds they support.
• Your state native plant society publishes plant lists and usually holds spring and fall plant sales, which are often the cheapest source of local plants.
• Your county Cooperative Extension office, run by the state land-grant university, has regional planting guides and Master Gardener volunteers who answer questions for free.
• The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s plant database lets you filter by state, sun, soil moisture and height.

For a first bed, pick three to five tough, widely grown species for your region: a couple of flowering perennials, one native grass or sedge for structure, and something that blooms late. In much of the East and Midwest that might be purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, wild bergamot, little bluestem and an aster. In the West the list looks very different.

Plugs, pots or seed

Plugs are the best value. They’re young plants in deep, narrow cells, and many native nurseries sell them in flats of 32 or 50 at a discount. Small plants transplant with less shock and grow roots quickly, so they usually catch up with pricier potted plants by the second year.

Seed is cheapest but slowest, and seedlings are hard to tell from weeds. Many natives also need a cold, moist winter before they’ll sprout, so sow them in late fall. Use seed to fill gaps, not for the whole bed.

Make the bed without digging

Digging out sod is hard work and turns up buried weed seed. Sheet mulching smothers the grass in place and feeds the soil as it breaks down.

1. 1

   Cut the grass short 30 min · free

   Mow as low as the mower goes and leave the clippings. Edge the bed outline with a spade.

2. 2

   Lay cardboard 1 hour · free

   Use plain brown boxes with tape and labels removed. Overlap the edges by 6 inches so grass can’t find a gap, then soak it with the hose.

3. 3

   Add mulch on top 2 hours · $0–$40

   Spread 3 to 4 inches of wood chips. Many cities give them away free, and tree crews often drop off a load at no charge.

4. 4

   Plant through it 2 hours · plugs only

   In fall or spring, pull back the chips, cut an X in the cardboard with a knife, dig a small hole and plant. Push the mulch back around the stem, not against it.

5. 5

   Water in 20 min · free

   Soak each plug right after planting so soil settles around the roots.

You can plant the same day in fall. In spring, waiting four to six weeks for the grass to die gives better results. Aggressive grasses such as Bermuda may push through in places; pull those shoots as they appear.

First-year watering

The “less water” benefit of natives only starts once roots are established. In the first growing season, small plants need regular water like anything else.

• Weeks one to three: water every two or three days unless it rains.
• Rest of the first season: about an inch a week, given in one deep soak, when rain falls short.
• Second year: water only in long dry spells.
• From year three: most beds get by on rainfall alone outside the desert Southwest.

A gardeners’ saying sums up the timeline: the first year they sleep, the second they creep, the third they leap. Don’t judge the bed in its first summer.

A $200 budget, line by line

For a 10-by-10-foot sunny bed: 45 plugs at $2 to $4 ($90 to $180), cardboard and city wood chips (free), a $10 packet of seed for gaps, and a hose you already own. If your plant society sale offers member discounts, a $25 membership can pay for itself in one order. Spend the leftover on a second batch of plugs the next spring rather than larger plants.

Weeding is the main job in years one and two, about 15 minutes a week in early summer. Once the plants close the gaps, that falls to a few sessions a year. In late winter, cut the old stems to 6 to 12 inches; leaving them standing until then gives birds seed and shelters overwintering insects.