this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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lol must be great living in a fair weather state where stuff doesn’t die every frost.
That I’m works for places that can leave bulbs in the ground, lots of people need to remove even native bulbs since the frosts get too hard and will kill most of them.
Native doesn’t mean zero maintenance, who told you that lmfao? It still requires maintenance if you don’t want it looking like garbage. Beauty is subjective, but yeah lack of maintenance is just laziness and claiming it’s beautiful is justifying the not wanting to deal with it.
Native yards still need maintenance, flowers need to be deadheaded weekly while blooming for example. No one talks about the finer details, just glosses over how “simple” it is. Yeah if you let turn to shit it’s easy lmfao.
Dunno what "natives" you're planting, but if you have a true native landscape, there's very little maintenance. You just have to work with the right people (i.e. - not landscapers) to help select a true low-maintenance, lawn. If you plant the right mix, you can have a really nice looking lawn that has different native flowering plants throughout the growing season and will look really nice.
If you're spending hours a day, or even hours a week, you probably want a very specific, manicured look. Or you didn't do the right planting mix.
https://www.prairiemoon.com/ is a great resource for this stuff.
Native plants still need to be deadheaded, still need to be pruned and trimmed.
Native plants still require maintenance, they just have better synthesis with the other plants.
The time is for the amount of plants. Yeah having 4 plants in a small yard is easy work, but 4 plants in a large yard would look barren and empty… so more plants, more work. If 4 plants are 5 minutes of work a week, 40 plants is 50 minutes. For a similar yard of turf it would be 30 minutes of mowing. Now you have to maintain your grass, can’t mow since it’s not all turf, and still need to deal with the additional plants. It’s x+y, not x or y….
People who buy into this “native is easier” is being sold a bridge that requires more work down the road if they don’t want it to look like shit. For a few years it’s fine, and why every rants about it, because it hasn’t reached the issue point yet. Native plants thrive more, or should, meaning they require more work since they you know, grow and spread easier….
You're uneducated on the topic and talking like you have all the facts. I have a large property that looks like the top image, and it's extremely low maintenance compared to a manicured lawn. I don't have to dead-head flowers, because they're incorporated into a larger planting, so it looks perfectly natural to have a few flowers in multiple stages of their lifecycle along side the rest of the property. NORMAL nature looks beautiful and not messy.
Sure, if you have a row of "native" flowers in a bed of mulch, they take maintenance. In that case, don't have a native lawn, you have a few native plants in an unnatural ecosystem.
Natives are easier, much lower maintenance, better for the environment, and look much better unless you're used to flat, green, golf courses.
What’s so magical about native plants that you think they don’t require the same regular maintenance of any other plants?
If you don’t dead head, those seeds will blow all over your yard, meaning you need to weed them, or your yard is a mess since it’s all over the place. Or the plants get so dense are competing with each other chocking each other out. I’m sorry this was never properly explained to you.
People sell “native” yards to people who think they can neglect their yards. Theres a reason why they don’t show established yards in their marketing lmfao.
You are talking about a native patch in a non-native yard. That's not how this works. You make a native YARD. The fact that they spread seeds is a GOOD THING. It's not a weed, because it belongs there.
It's self-seeding, it's self-maintaining. It's not magic, it's evolution. The plants are supposed to be there, they want to be there, the ground wants them to be there, nature wants it to be there. You're building a house in nature, not putting a tiny spot of non-natural nature in your lawn.
The maintenance is less, but you still have some. You just need to make sure that invasives stay out, but past that, it's mostly self-maintaining.
Heres a great resource so you can educate yourself instead of repeating marketing verbatim.
Great point right here for you
Having one flower gets its seeds under another plant can cause issues of competition, even with native plants.
Uhh native doesn’t mean self seeding or self maintaining. Your native plant isn’t native here and does the same exact thing unless it’s invasive…
You claim I’m uneducated and you only spout marketing they sell to people who haven’t read or studied horticulture.
I very much live in a cold climate with a deep frost, it's totally not a problem. Because the native plants are used to it! For many ifs part of their lifecycle: the seeds require the cold cycle before they will germinate. Very cool stuff.
You don't need to deadhead your flowers: only if you're looking to extend the flowering time. Otherwise just let them do their thing. They'll flowers, then make seeds, and those seeds will contribute to the ecosystem.
If you like, you can give me a rough region you're in (like a state and part of the state) and the conditions of the yard you're struggling with (dry/wet, sun conditions) and I'll try and dig up some resources!