I'm in an Eastern Temperate Forest and am in Hardiness Zone 7.  I think my yard gets quite a lot of sun, but it's tricky to tell since it's March, and I'm afraid when the trees have leaves it will become shadier?  How do I plan for this?  I feel very intimidated about choosing spaces for new beds.  Ideally, my whole front yard would no longer be grass, but we're brand new homeowners so I think I'll have to settle for a smaller patch this first year and expand, due to not being able to spend a ton of money and also learning the ropes.  It's intimidating to know where to start in the yard.  I might make kind of a random bean-shaped bed of natives in the front yard to start.  Then, I have a very damp and shady patch in the back that I'd like to add some ground cover to.  I was thinking wild ginger and heartless foamflower.

I live in North West Nevada almost in California. Our Ecoregion is: Cold Desert, Central Basins and range, Sierra Nevada influenced semi arid hills and basin. Quite a mouth full. In short: cold in the winter hot and dry in the summer, with little moisture. I believe we get about 8 inches of rain on average per year.  I have clay soil with pockets of sand. I have grown vegetables for a long time with some success. Last summer we had very bad smoke from the California fires, so even the vegi's didn't get enough sun light. This has become a summer problem. O' and we only have 4 months between frosts to grow. I have counted birds in the Cornell bird count for 12 seasons now, but it finally dawned on me that I could get new and different birds if I planted more native plants. As you can see I am a slow learner. I have Jeffery pines in part of my yard but they all suffer with bug damage. I have a number of Buffalo Berry bushes which the birds love but they only have berries several months of the year. I leave my vegi's to go to seed and don't clean up the yard which helps ground feeder, but I want to expand the native ornamental's. The problem here is where to find plants that will survive this climate. The local nursery's don't carry much native plants. They seem to like Southern California types. I finally found a local nursery in Truckee California about 60 miles from me. So I will have to travel some to purchase locally. The picture is my front yard view.

My ecoregion is Marine West Coast Forest, which is very true for my yard just south of Seattle, WA.  I'm in zone 8a-b.  Most of the lawn here was removed before we moved in five years ago, and I removed the rest.  We have a heavily wooded lot, lots of pine cones for birds feeding.  The soil is more sandy than anything else, very poor quality due to the yard being covered by black plastic and fabric years ago.  I am spending a lot of time working to improve the soil with mulch.  I've added vertical features for birds to sit on and turned the front yard into a park like environment - dry pond, two park benches, two birdbaths grasses.  This is the first year I've seen birds actually bathing, not just drinking out of the birdbaths!  I even had an immature Cooper's Hawk sit down in the birdbath and bathe. I'm focusing on native plants to add to the yard.  I have two new Mahonia plants, and I've read that birds eat the berries.  I haven't seen any evidence of that so far.  Coneflower and hypericum are attracting birds, and my bee balm was a hummingbird favorite along with my hardy fuchsia.  Adding to my non-plan, I want to include a blueberry bush and maybe a crabapple tree. My backyard is really shaded about 90%+ of the time.  I am struggling to create a bird friendly environment there.  I do have a popular birdbath there, plus a suet feeder that is beloved by Northern Flickers.  I need to identify more shade loving native plants.

I had an area that was completely weeds from previous owners.  Last summer I started attacking the weeds and planting beneficials.  I wanted to create a multiple purpose garden including a "Mary garden" and a cottage garden.  But I soon modified my garden to a bird and pollinator garden.  I have many plants with trumpet flowers such as Agastache. for my hummingbirds.  I used tube feeders and have had 2 male goldfinches all summer long along with a variety of doves, finches sparrows.  I think the miserable neighborhood cat killed my sole woodpecker.  I also have four California quail.  I did not start off with a plan.  I just started planting, planting all over.  I still do not use a plan.  I see an empty space and I just try to fill it.  Today I purchased a high growing blueberry bush.  At 6'x6' I really am a little stumped where I will try to place that!   but the thought of all of those berries for my birds plus the cover was just too tempting.  I think it is the first lesson where the writer speaks of gardening as a type of art.  I view gardening this way and although I do not remember all of my plant names or spacings, I really do feel passionate about developing such beautiful life=giving space around me.  I plant native plants and others.

My ecoregion is 'Long Island Sound Coastal Lowland' and hardiness zone is USDA 7a (0 to 5 degree F). My wife and I have lived on our current property for 35 years and, up to now, have continued maintaining a traditional non-native lawn/landscaping that we 'inherited' from the previous owner. It is a work-in-progress but we are continuing to convert to native flora (learning a lot and having a great time doing it!). I believe native gardening is just starting to take hold in our area and we have found nurseries are starting to get the message. Mapping out our space and determining growing conditions has been a trial and error process to determine what native plants do best where but we are making real progress. The first area that we designated as all native was an area between two trees (a large oak and Norwegian Spruce) that was not ideal for either lawn or non-native flora. It is now not only an anesthetically beautiful view out our front window but a food source for both birds and pollinators.

My local ecoregion is the California Mediterranean. My hardiness zone appears to be 9b. It is also surrounded by 10a areas. I wish the native plant databases I used contained this information when I look up the plants though. They just have other info on the plants like drainage, and soil tolerance which I suppose is very useful too but no hardiness numbers. I did a squeeze test as well as a drainage test on my soil and I found that I definitely have some slow draining clay soil! It gets very packed when wet and there is no sign of any other soil type below. At the start of this season I actually also made a map of my yard noting the sun as well. All this information has helped a lot with narrowing down what plants I can use. So in summery, the spot I am going to be planting in gets part shade, has clay soil, and is located in a 9a hardiness zone.

I have both plants to remove and plants to put in. I am focusing on trying to remove some invasives from my property. There are a lot of them.  I am investigating how to create a natural hedgerow at the border of my property. I have a hedge that I share with neighbors of  invasive burning bushes that I would like to have removed. I would like to replace the hedge with a natural hedgerow (just read about the difference between the two) but have to wait while my neighbors determine their property edge. They want to keep their invasives. So, meanwhile I will have to plant several elderberry bushes somewhere else on my property so I have to determine where to put them. I read they do well near white pine but my white pine area create a lot of shade, so I am not sure that is the best place for them. Also, I would like to create a layering in my yard of bushes,, so I have to focus on creating a plan overall of my yard, focuses on plants that create food for birds all year round. It is an enormous task that will take a long time, so I will have to work on areas of the yard little by little. I have a hemlock tree that is being attacked by Hemlock Wooly  Adelgid (not sure spelling is correct). . Any suggestions on something ecologically friendly to get rid of them? I live in Connecticut - the Northeast - and know that a lot of Hemlocks are being attacked by this insect.

Work in progress!

I actually started with a small garden for monarch butterflies, following the recommendations for my locale, as provided by the North American Butterfly Assn. It was so exciting when monarchs, as well as other butterflies came, that I expanded to create a large native prairie garden in a 300 sq ft gardening bed. It was large enough that I have some regrets I didn't just sow it with native prairie seed mixes. I had a color scheme in mind of purples, pinks, blues, and whites. So, I planted purple coneflowers throughout, with some purple poppy mallow, wild nodding onion, swamp milkweed, common milkweed, blue lobelia, blue indigo, ironweed, New England aster, dogbane, wild bergamot, foxwood beardtongue, pearly everlasting, wild strawberry, joe pye weed, prairie phlox, prairie dropseed grass, bluestem grass, indian grass, and side oats grama grass. Purple coneflowers are wonderful because they bloom a long time and multiply. They transplant well. I'm happy I did this color scheme, which is in full bloom now. There was another area that was more difficult in terms of landscaping, because I had to invent the garden beds. I finally realized it would be best as a courtyard. I created flowering hedges on three sides with borders of flowers in front and a circular garden in the center with a hummingbird feeder. I had a small patio made to look out on the courtyard. There's a secret garden feel to it that I love, which is nice variety to the prairie garden beyond and the open woodland look of the front yard. I still have lawn to get rid of in the front yard and got some good ideas from our class about native ground covers.

I recently put in a pollinator bed with butterfly weed, swamp milkweed, beauty bush, winter berries, and other pollinator friendly native plants. I also had a rain garden and large conservation landscape with native plants and shrubs installed, a permeable patio with native plants surrounding it, and two shade beds in my front yard. I am planning on converting the back yard bit by bit into planting beds, and putting a few more beds in the front yard. It's my 5-year plan! I would also like to find a water element to add to the back gardens. Now, I just need a year or so survival and growth.

I can't place any trees or plants because of the house I live in, we only one the house and a small amount of plants and feeders in our backyard. I like everyones storys, though!

It wasn't challenging to map out my yard and look up my ecoregion and hardiness zone. Because there is so much to do, I find that I have a few projects going on at once. I have so many invasive growing under the wooded area of my yard.  Last year I had an eco-goat service come to knock down the weeds. It was fun watching the goats eat! We were able to maintain control and plant some areas. We have scheduled the goats to come and redo some spots and hit some new areas. There are many non-native ornamentals that we have marked for removal. So far we have removed all of the barberry bushes and replanted with Carolina spicebush and black chokeberry. We removed some Japanese Spirea and put in native wildflowers. I have more spirea that needs to go, plus catmint, skip or cherry laurel, non-native viburnums, etc. We have expand the flower beds and the beds around tree and added native bushes and ground covers. I'd like to replace the lawn with some native options. We have made a start, but there is still a long way to go.

I have ordered some seed for a pollinator garden from Ernst Conservation Seed.  I plan to convert a mown lawn space into a pollinator garden, starting with a space that's about 8' x 4' and expanding over several years.  I would also like to put up a deer fence to protect some of the wild raspberry bushes to save them for the birds.

I have started a partial shade meadow in our backyard.  The big challenge has been garlic mustard weed, which outstrips every other plant.  My husband has been “mowing” with the trimmer, and I hope my seeds will come through.  It is a 4y year endeavour and we are in year 1.  I have planted a number of native understory trees and bushes, like elderberry, mountain laurel, wit hazel, etc.  Wandering around out there, I came upon Jack in the pulpit and I have been nursing them along. on the upside, I have found a downy woodpecker nest.  That was pretty exciting!  There are a number of snags back there, so we’ll see who else shows up.  I really like the song birds at my feeders, and I am not sure they will be happy about owls, but it would be neat to hear them.  I printed some of the birdhouse plans and hope to work on that this winter.

Currently I'm collecting native plants to redo the flower bed in the front yard. Along with this remodel I will be removing lawn. There is also a water feature in that area. In addition I plan on remodeling order bed by removing invasives and replacing negatives.

I am excited to start a small native plant patch with a birdbath to help attract additional species. The biggest problem we have is our "soil," which is really just clay and rocks.