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Creating a Native Flower Garden

November 21, 2020 Eric Miller
IMG_20200830_115816865_HDR.jpg

Grass is just about everywhere, and it’s really good at outcompeting other plants. So for those of us who want to create natural, native spaces, grasses can be a challenge. One way to deal with grass (as well as other undesired vegetation) is to spray it with a herbicide—several times over the course of the growing season to get a good kill. But if you want to avoid multiple chemical applications, another option is to starve the grass of sunlight. All you need is a tarp and some stakes. Mow down the area you want to convert to a native garden, stake a tarp over that area, and wait a year. (I recommend using a green tarp to minimize any eyesore for you or your neighbors.) Pretty much everything under the tarp will die, leaving a blank canvas for planting your natives.

On the left is the newly seeded bare ground that was covered with a tarp in 2020, and on the right is the tarp to prep another patch of ground for 2021.

On the left is the newly seeded bare ground that was covered with a tarp in 2020, and on the right is the tarp to prep another patch of ground for 2021.

I did my first “tarp kill” last fall after getting the idea from—wait for it—a t-shirt company in Iowa. After a hot summer of baking in the sun, I found a nice piece of bare ground when I removed the tarp a month ago. That gave me a perfect spot to sow multiple types of milkweed, prairie blazing star, blue mistflower (shown above), and other native seeds I’ve been collecting from my field lately. Because these are native wildflowers that are wind-dispersed, you don’t need to dig holes for them, or fertilize them, or otherwise make a fuss. Just sprinkle them over the cleared area and let nature take its course. You can always walk over the area to press them into the ground if you’re worried about the wind blowing them away, but the freeze-thaw cycles of winter will do most of the work.

Butterfly weed seeds ready to transfer to my native garden space.

Butterfly weed seeds ready to transfer to my native garden space.

The size of your tarp determines the size of your garden, and you can make a pretty significant native space this way if you’re looking to convert a piece of your suburban lawn. On the other hand, this method may not work for larger properties, which may require prescribed burns or herbicides to convert in a timely manner. I’m going to keep overseeding my pasture with natives to slowly reintroduce biodiversity, and in the meantime I’ll expand this area each year, one tarp at a time. I can’t wait to see what it looks like in a couple years, and I’m excited for the opportunity to provide a little Eden for my honey bees, the native pollinators, and other wildlife.

← Your Beekeeping CalendarBest Gifts for Beekeepers, 2020 →

Previous Posts

  • 2023
    • Dec 24, 2023 Should I Wrap My Hives for Winter?
    • Jan 2, 2023 Can Hobby Beekeepers Make Money?
  • 2022
    • Jun 18, 2022 The Impossible Task of Putting on Gloves with Sweaty Hands
    • Apr 17, 2022 Habitat, Habitat, Habitat
  • 2021
    • Dec 5, 2021 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2021
    • Sep 26, 2021 Why I Like Seeing Mites in My Hives
    • Jul 31, 2021 How to Extract Honey
    • Jun 13, 2021 Knowing When to Pull Honey Supers
    • Apr 11, 2021 Improving the Odds of Winter Survival
    • Mar 13, 2021 Oxalic Acid Approved for Use With Honey Supers
    • Jan 23, 2021 Your Beekeeping Calendar
  • 2020
    • Nov 21, 2020 Creating a Native Flower Garden
    • Oct 17, 2020 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2020
    • Aug 29, 2020 Beekeeping as a Gateway to Conservationism
    • Jun 13, 2020 Moving a Swarm into a Nearby Hive
    • May 3, 2020 Easy Solar Wax Melter
    • Apr 30, 2020 Invasion of the Asian Giant Hornet
    • Mar 18, 2020 A Quarantined Beekeeper
    • Feb 2, 2020 Skunk Fence
  • 2019
    • Dec 16, 2019 Easy Honey Bee Feeding Stations
    • Nov 17, 2019 Is Honey Vegan?
    • Nov 2, 2019 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2019
    • Oct 11, 2019 Mite Bomb!
    • Aug 11, 2019 Beekeeping is Backbreaking Work
    • Jun 15, 2019 Tracking Bloom Dates for Better Beekeeping
    • May 24, 2019 How Many Bee Stings Would it Take to Kill You?
    • Apr 26, 2019 Painted Hive Bricks
    • Mar 23, 2019 Swarm Traps Deployed
    • Feb 18, 2019 If Honey Were Firewood
    • Feb 2, 2019 Migrants: Honey Bees in the Almond Trees
    • Jan 5, 2019 Making Beeswax Candles
  • 2018
    • Nov 30, 2018 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2018
    • Nov 12, 2018 Keeping Entrances Free of Snow
    • Oct 20, 2018 Controlling Hive Moisture in the Winter
    • Sep 29, 2018 Goldenrod: Flower of Last Resort?
    • Aug 18, 2018 Are Wild Bees Healthier Than Kept Bees?
    • Jul 21, 2018 Honey is Thirsty
    • Jul 4, 2018 How to Split a Hive (Or Raise a Queen in a Queenless Colony)
    • May 31, 2018 The Sweetest of Clovers
    • May 17, 2018 How to Spot a Honey Flow
    • May 5, 2018 Having a Plan
    • Apr 28, 2018 Deep Deep vs Deep Medium
    • Apr 21, 2018 Specialists
    • Apr 5, 2018 Red Handed
    • Mar 24, 2018 How Bees Fly in Cold Weather
    • Mar 13, 2018 Survivor
    • Mar 2, 2018 Bee Smart Feeder
    • Feb 20, 2018 Catching Bees with a Swarm Trap
    • Feb 18, 2018 Skunk at the Bee Hive
    • Jan 27, 2018 Diagnosing a Winter Dead Out
    • Jan 21, 2018 Horrible Decision Yields Horrible Results
    • Jan 11, 2018 Rotten
    • Jan 11, 2018 Alive
  • 2017
    • Dec 29, 2017 Making Mead
    • Dec 26, 2017 First Test of My Bee Hive Snow Visors
    • Dec 22, 2017 Uh Oh...
    • Dec 15, 2017 A Rafter of Turkeys
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    • Nov 7, 2017 MiteCalculator.com Featured on Popular Beekeeping Podcast
    • Nov 7, 2017 Winterizing With Snow Visors
    • Nov 7, 2017 Two-Wheeled Honey Deliveries
    • Nov 7, 2017 Bees and Water
    • Nov 7, 2017 Storing Used Frames
    • Nov 7, 2017 Bees Working Cosmos Flowers

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