Drew Lathin calls it a no-brainer. “I have always been interested in gardening and just started reading about native plants,” he says. So, converting his lot to native plants in 2014 was a simple choice. “I could have beauty and habitat in the same place.”
This is an excerpt from the Wild Ones Journal
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Lathin says he slowly transformed his yard, section by section, as time and money allowed. “I started in the front with the addition of a rain garden, then a Bradford pear tree was blown down by a windstorm – who says prayers aren’t answered – and that created an opportunity to add a red maple and a large perennial bed around it. And then … more beds, a prairie and pond in the back, and so on, piece by piece.”
Owner of Creating Sustainable Landscapes, LLC, Lathin says the designs of his native plantings just come to him. He explains what he means by talking about the various native gardens in his yard. “My rain garden came to me because there is a swale between my house and my neighbor’s house that directed rain into a storm sewer in the street,” he says. The rain garden helps to capture some of the water, instead of directing it all into the street.
Most of his landscaping decisions are based on a goal of ridding his property of grass. In the front, for instance, he has several pathways of lawn that range from 3-5 feet, just wide enough so two people can walk side by side. But that lawn serves an important purpose, he says. “It looks intentional,” and that’s important to keeping neighbors happy.
In the front, he took out lawn and added another rain garden to capture water coming off his garage roof, he says. For his prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) bed, he wanted to try something different and show that grasses can be especially beautiful throughout different times of the year.
Lathin says his neighbors think his landscaping is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean they’ve converted to natural landscaping themselves. “I had one neighbor who told me what I do is gorgeous, and then he hired a landscaper to do his front yard with a typical plant-mulch design. But it’s his yard.”
While Lathin says he enjoys almost all native plants, some of his favorites are cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) because of its vibrant color and attraction to hummingbirds; rattlesnake master (Eryngiumyuccifolium) because of its oddness; and prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) because it is “dorky.” Other favorites include bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) because he enjoys watching bumblebees open the closed flower; prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) because of its fragrance; little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) for its four-season interest; butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) because of its bright orange color; swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) because he often finds monarch caterpillars on it, and white wild indgo (Baptisia alba) because it is just beautiful.
Lathin has approximately 57 native species on his property (graminoids, forbs, shrubs, vines and trees), and all but three are native to Michigan. “Aside from some grass pathways in the front, a little lawn in the back, a few remnant daylilies, hostas, boxwoods, yews and two crabapples, it’s all native,” he says.
With three rain gardens, 2,000-square feet of prairie, a pond, a buffalograss (Boute-louadactyloides) lawn extension and several native perennial beds, Lathin says the only thing left to do in his yard is “edit” what’s there. But he says he spends very little time maintaining his native gardens because they are so densely planted. In addition, every other year, he does a prescribed burn in the front, which also stops many weeds from taking over.
“If I spend an hour a month weeding, that’s a lot,” he says. “I’m a lazy gardener. Even in the beds, they don’t intermix that much because of dense planting.”
Lathin says he added the pond, knowing it would attract wildlife. “American toads, green frogs, tree frogs, birds, dragonflies mating … I’ve even had a female belted kingfisher grab a goldfish out of that pond,” he recalls. “Blue herons have showed up, and for the past three years I think I had the same mating pair of ducks show up. It’s only 100-square feet, but it attracts so much wildlife.”
Behind the pond is a marshy area that has standing water in it 365 days a year because the nearby storm sewer has been bermed and the sump pump directs water there. In that area, he’s added native plants that are happy in moist conditions.
Lathin says he always enjoyed gardening, but that he used to garden the way most people still do. “You’d see a pretty plant, and then buy it and plant it without understanding its function,” he says. “But as I learned more, I started just using native plants. It really was a gradual thing to me that not only made sense, but was also beautiful.”
However, there is no doubt that his native plants are effective in getting pollinators to stop by. Lathin says he gets “gazillions” of pollinators and birds in his yard. “Lots of bees, hummingbirds, suburban birds, and a family of cooper’s hawks in 2016 and 2017. I’ve also watched them successfully hunt.”
Lathin says his advice to others new to natural landscaping is to start small. “Take out a little bit of lawn and put in a perennial bed. Match plants that evolved to the conditions you have. If you have wet, clay soil and lots of shade, use plants that evolved in those conditions so you don’t have to amend soil. And then plant densely in drifts and masses.”
About the Yard
- The ¼-acre plus yard is located in Novi, a suburb in southeastern Michigan, and Lathin says he works hard to make it formal and acceptable in the neighborhood.
- The front yard includes two rain gardens, a large perennial bed, a prairie dropseed bed and foundation plantings, which are part native and part remnant nonnative. Grass is limited to pathways.
- His backyard includes a 2,000-square-foot prairie, a 100-square foot pond and mostly herbaceous foundation plantings.
- Lathin’s side yards include mostly herbaceous foundation plantings.
Written by Barbara A. Schmitz
Photos by Drew Lathin