How to Have Your Own Mini Wildflower Meadow in the City
These 3 tips will help you find the right plants for the right place to create an appealing garden
Benjamin Vogt
27 May 2022
Houzz Contributor. I'm a big advocate for bringing the tallgrass prairie into our urban lives -- only 1% remains, making it more threatened than the Amazon rainforest yet also as effective at sequestering CO2. I own Monarch Gardens LLC, a prairie garden design firm based in Nebraska and working with clients across the Midwest. I also speak nationally on native plants, sustainable design, and landscape ethics while hosting online classes. I'm the author of A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future. In the coming years we want to restore a 40+ acre prairie and host an artist residency program.
Houzz Contributor. I'm a big advocate for bringing the tallgrass prairie into our... More
You don’t need to live in the wide, open expanse of the country to have a wildflower garden at home. From choosing resilient plants to layering your plantings, you can echo the feeling of wildness in an attractive, tidy city garden. The following strategies will help you turn a smaller outdoor space into a wildflower and wildlife haven, while working within the constraints of an urban environment.
1. Use Resilient Plants
Plants face a host of challenges in the city, such as proximity to sidewalks and streets, hot, polluted air and low-quality soils. Additionally, the occasional passerby might snip a bloom to take home, or a neighborhood pet might use the flower bed as a restroom.
You can alleviate those issues a bit by using adaptable plants — natives are often a good choice — that can tolerate a variety of site conditions. These plants should be better equipped to withstand the rigors of urban runoff and soil and air pollution with more gusto than others.
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Plants face a host of challenges in the city, such as proximity to sidewalks and streets, hot, polluted air and low-quality soils. Additionally, the occasional passerby might snip a bloom to take home, or a neighborhood pet might use the flower bed as a restroom.
You can alleviate those issues a bit by using adaptable plants — natives are often a good choice — that can tolerate a variety of site conditions. These plants should be better equipped to withstand the rigors of urban runoff and soil and air pollution with more gusto than others.
Find a landscape designer in your area
Some native wildflowers that are especially well-equipped to handle urban conditions include:
- Red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis, USDA zones 3 to 7; find your zone)
- Yarrow (Achillea millefolium, zones 3 to 9)
- Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa, zones 3 to 10)
- Aster (Symphyotrichum spp., zones 3 to 8)
- Blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis, zones 3 to 9)
- Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea, zones 3 to 9)
- Coneflower (Echinacea spp., zones 3 to 9)
- Tall blazing star (Liatris aspera, zones 3 to 8)
- Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis, zones 3 to 9)
- Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta, zones 3 to 9)
- Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea, zones 3 to 8)
2. Plant Tightly and in Layers
Weeds and heat will be your primary foes when you’re gardening in an urban environment. One way to combat both is by thickly planting your wildflower garden so that it is lush and layered.
Place plants close together (fewer than 12 inches apart) and layer them, starting with low or ground cover plants. Then add midlayer plants that are 2 to 3 feet tall, followed by flowering plants that reach 3 feet tall or higher, including shrubs and small trees.
These layers not only create a more visually engaging and intriguing landscape for humans, but they also increase the garden’s ability to shade out weeds and conserve soil moisture, all while amending soil naturally over time with root growth. The wildlife benefit a garden like this could provide is also off the charts.
Weeds and heat will be your primary foes when you’re gardening in an urban environment. One way to combat both is by thickly planting your wildflower garden so that it is lush and layered.
Place plants close together (fewer than 12 inches apart) and layer them, starting with low or ground cover plants. Then add midlayer plants that are 2 to 3 feet tall, followed by flowering plants that reach 3 feet tall or higher, including shrubs and small trees.
These layers not only create a more visually engaging and intriguing landscape for humans, but they also increase the garden’s ability to shade out weeds and conserve soil moisture, all while amending soil naturally over time with root growth. The wildlife benefit a garden like this could provide is also off the charts.
Grasses and sedges (Carex spp.) are also important ingredients to layer in an urban wildflower garden. Wildflowers will come and go as they self-sow and move, and at times there will be bare spots where you don’t want weeds moving in.
Grasses and sedges help cover these open areas, and their fibrous root zones are fantastic at opening up clay soil for greater water penetration and enriching poor soil with a sandy or gravelly element. Grasses may lose a third of their roots each year, and these dead roots add vital organic matter and foster beneficial soil organisms.
Some grasses to consider include:
Grasses and sedges help cover these open areas, and their fibrous root zones are fantastic at opening up clay soil for greater water penetration and enriching poor soil with a sandy or gravelly element. Grasses may lose a third of their roots each year, and these dead roots add vital organic matter and foster beneficial soil organisms.
Some grasses to consider include:
- Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium, zones 2 to 9)
- Sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula, zones 3 to 9)
- Blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis, zones 3 to 10)
- Shortbeak sedge (Carex brevior, zones 3 to 8) — a fairly adaptable sedge
3. Maintain a Pleasing, Tidy Design
It’s always good to follow a few tried-and-true design rules when thinking about wildflower gardens in high-visibility areas, as these gardens should be inviting and appealing to passersby.
It’s always good to follow a few tried-and-true design rules when thinking about wildflower gardens in high-visibility areas, as these gardens should be inviting and appealing to passersby.
- Half of your plants should be 1 foot to 2 feet tall or shorter. I’d suggest a combination of low sedges and grasses as well as ground cover flowers like wild geranium (Geranium maculatum, zones 2 to 9) or purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata, zones 4 to 9). This strategy provides an unimposing, unified layer that smooths out the garden plane, making it easier to view the entire landscape. If the plants are low enough, they might even mimic a tall lawn.
- Plant in clumps of odd numbers. Repeat those clumps in various areas to provide a pleasing repetition for the human eye to follow. Those groupings signify to a passerby that this isn’t a wild mess, but has been planted with purpose.
- Always have something in bloom by planting a mix of flowers that bloom from early spring to late autumn.
- Keep tall plants to the center and back of beds. You can plant these in clumps and drifts as well, or simply have one or two as architectural accents rising above everything else.
- Have a lawn or mulched pathway snaking through the landscape, or place a garden bench, sculpture or birdbath among the flowers. These features add visual interest and anchor points, and also help tie the garden’s elements into materials found in the urban jungle — like wood, stone, concrete and metal.
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Thank you for the fine article you have written. I appreciate your creativity and intriguing way of showcasing landscapes and beautiful things.
Here is a photo of the wild flowers which grow in half of my garden. I love the contrast between the lawn and the wild meadow and am happy to be doing something for the environment.