The beauty and purpose of a natural, sustainable native plant garden doesn't end in fall -- in fact it's just beginning. When you leave your plants standing you provide numerous ecosystem benefits from habitat and food for wildlife to reducing rainwater runoff. And planning for winter can add an exciting dimension to plan selection and arrangement -- just thinking what the seed head, bracts, and textures will be is delightful. Brown is a color, too, and there are myriad shades along with gothic black and creamy whites and coppers.
Learn more at monarchgard.com, which hosts jam-packed online classes and useful pocket garden guides on a wide range of sustainable landscape design subjects that empower and build confidence to garden with nature and not against it. There's also a self-paced design workshop that takes things to another level.
Monarch Gardens is a prairie-inspired design firm. It is managed by Benjamin Vogt, author of A NEW GARDEN ETHIC: CULTIVATING DEFIANT COMPASSION FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE, as well as PRAIRIE UP: AN INTRODUCTION TO NATURAL GARDEN DESIGN. Benjamin's work has been featured in The American Gardener, Dwell, Fine Gardening, The Guardian, Horticulture, Midwest Living, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as a variety of books including American Roots. He is a sought-after speaker on landscape ethics and natural design, combining dad jokes with passionate activism and practical advice to reprairie suburbia and unlawn America.
9 сен 2024