7 Ways to Use Drifts and Masses In Your Garden by Benjamin Vogt

Most gardeners, I think, want to bring a bit of the wilder natural world into their home landscapes. This doesn’t mean an unkempt look, but it does often mean imitating and interpreting the natural structure, form and layout of a prairie, woodland or even desert. Plants form communities. Plants colonize. Plants rely on family and friends to grow well as they share information and resources through their scents and roots.

One way to create a beautiful garden that’s lower maintenance and emulates nature is to use drifts and masses. Here are seven ways to design with this method — and the reasons for doing so.

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1. Create a wilder look. Nature expresses self-similarity — it repeats itself over and over in patterns that can be mapped mathematically. In other words, nature is a geometric fractal, a pattern that duplicates itself on small and grand scales. Think snowflakes, coneflower heads, trees, mountains and coastlines.

In a garden you can intermingle drifts of plants. Toss in a few massed clumps of flowers amid a backdrop of grasses, then repeat that flower and grass pattern elsewhere on a larger or smaller scale — say, three of a kind here, seven of a kind there. If you have a large area, you can do this with bigger plants and more of them; in a small space, choose smaller plants with a more limited species palette.

Arthur Road Landscapes

2. Keep smaller spaces simple. Going with a smaller plant palette doesn’t mean limiting your choices or garden experience. A small space can quickly become overwhelmed and chaotic when there are too many plant species or their size overwhelms the space. Think about shorter plants and using more of one kind. Let’s say you have a 100-square-foot garden — maybe you’d use four to six different plant species but have 10 of each. Then if you clump them together or have drifts intermingle, you create intrigue and formal style without the perceived visual chaos of more plant species.

Learn how to focus your garden palette

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3. Tie a larger landscape together. The balance and weight of plant drifts can anchor a view in a larger landscape and prevent it from overwhelming or becoming visually dysfunctional. A large swath of the same grasses balances the heft of a built structure or grove of trees, or lends a more formal air when flanking a visual centerpiece, like a house.

Adam Woodruff + Associates, Garden Artisans

This is a close-up of a much larger garden, but you can see how drifts and masses are working on both informal and formal levels among the plants themselves. Grasses up front encircle the coneflowers, while both lead up to the taller Joe Pye Weed blooming white. There’s both a formal, stepped succession of height we expect in a tended garden, and a more informal surprise as the viewing angle changes from point to point; the intermingling drifts provide new vistas as we walk the landscape, creating surprise and cohesion at the same time.

Plants shown (click photo to see the plants tagged): Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum ‘Bartered Bride’, USDA zones 3 to 8; find your zone), Ruby Star purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Ruby Star’, zones 4 to 9), Shenandoah switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, zones 4 to 9), Hubricht’s bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii, zones 4 to 9)

4. Succulent gardens can play, too. A xeric or desert garden has a different aesthetic than a small front garden border or a larger, meadow-inspired landscape, but you can still use the principles of drifts and masses to mimic and interpret what you’d find in nature. Look at how the plants in this design at The Huntington botanical gardens are at play, with more formal golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii, zone 8) contrasting the spiked Parry agave (Agave parryi var. truncata, zones 4 to 11), and notice how some are evenly spaced and others more haphazardly positioned to reflect how they might appear in the wild.

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Of course you can be more more formal with succulents too, as in this space, where purple echeveria is woven among grasses. You can clearly see the larger pattern of the drifts forming in this close-up of the garden, and how similar heights help the landscape feel cohesive and thought out.

Plants shown: Echeveria (Echeveria ‘Afterglow’, zones 8 to 11), Elijah blue fescue (Festuca ‘Elijah Blue’, zones 4 to 8), blue moor grass (Sesleria caerulea, zones 5 to 9) and blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens, zones 4 to 8), with a mix of blue foxtail agave (Agave attenuata ‘Nova’, zones 10 to 11) and orange Libertia (Libertia peregrinans, zones 8 to 10)

Lankford Associates Landscape Architects

5. Ground covers level and focus the visual field. Here’s a great example of how the ground plane, filled with one blooming plant, can draw the eye forward through a design. The gravel path leads us into the larger planting and out to the water, but the creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum, zones 4 to 8) ground cover frames and guides, too, like runway lights. If there were a variety of flowering species down low, we’d get lost in the visual chaos, and the calm and serenity the garden is evoking would be lost. Even though this is a water’s-edge scene, I can’t help but think of a woodland trail. There, you’d see the trail edge filled with a few species all adrift as they move deeper into the forest canopy.

Plants shown: Creeping thyme, blue oat grass, Siberian iris (Iris sibirica, zones 4 to 9), Victoria California lilac (Ceanothus ‘Victoria’, zones 8 to 10), Palace Purple coral bells (Heuchera micrantha ‘Palace Purple’, zones 4 to 9)

Adam Woodruff + Associates, Garden Artisans

6. Winter matters. Don’t just think about how plants look in summer while in bloom. Look ahead to the cold season when some pretty stunning displays also happen. Long after the petals have wilted, what structure will your plants carry through the winter? What subtle, earthen tones will they hold, and how can you play them off one another?

7 Reasons Not to ‘Clean Up’ Your Fall Garden

Jocelyn H. Chilvers

7. Group flowers for pollinators. You can make it easier for bees and butterflies flying overhead to spot a great pit stop. Drifts and masses of blooming plants, like this Rocky Mountain zinnia (Zinnia grandiflora, zones 4 to 7) provide a more powerful beacon than solitary or scattered plants. So when you mass your species — say, in groups of three, five or seven — you’re not just bringing cohesion and balance to your landscape, you’re providing a lighthouse for pollinators.

Garden-Friendly Native Alternatives to Overplanted Exotics by Benjamin Vogt

When we drive through most towns in America, past businesses and through housing subdivisions, we’re likely to see similar plants from landscape to landscape. I’m not sure if contractors just love their trusted standbys, or if homeowners like the look and ease of plants they often see. I’m talking about hosta, barberry, Bradford pear and others I’ll explore in a moment. Some of these are certainly tough, low-care plants that make gardening easier, but what’s the fun in using the same plant over and over? And what happens when we find out that some of these plants are also invasive?

If we all like the look of these exotic plants, why can’t we use similar-performing natives that support a greater diversity of insects, birds and more? Without native plants, we lose all kinds of butterflies and bees that have adapted and co-evolved to need the natives. Are you ready for easy-care and attractive alternatives that just might enliven your landscape with new wildlife?

Below is a short list of native plants that look similar to the nonnative exotics they are replacing and will thrive in almost exactly the same conditions.

Barbara Pintozzi

Hosta Alternatives

The great thing about hostas (Hosta spp) is that you can leave them alone almost forever. Unfortunately, no native insects can raise their young on its leaves, and just a small contingent of the insects frequent its blooms. With hostas used so frequently in gardens today, there must be one for nearly every human in the world.

Try native Solomon’s plume (Maianthemum racemosum, syn. Smilacina racemosa) instead. It spreads slowly, blooms in late spring, likes medium to dry soil and gets about 2 feet tall. It’s native from Minnesota to Arkansas and east, and will support more wildlife than hosta — plus, it’s just as carefree.

Shown: Solomon’s plume (Maianthemum racemosum)

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Choose wild ginger (Asarum canadense) if you prefer thicker leaves and a lower habit. Plus, deer don’t like it, and pipevine swallowtails use it as a host plant. With a height of just 6 to 12 inches, and preferring a medium soil in shade, it is pretty easy to care for. It’s native from Minnesota to Mississippi and east.

You might also consider wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) as an attractive and quick-spreading ground cover. It blooms anywhere from late spring to early summer and loves dry soil in full shade.

Shown: Wild ginger (Asarum canadense)

Jay Sifford Garden Design

Japanese Barberry Alternative

Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) is prized for its structure, color and low care, but its thorns and lack of wildlife value are not so great — and it’s becoming a menace in the wild, especially in areas like the Northeast.

A couple of new ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) cultivars have come on the scene; not only do they have dark foliage like barberry, but their late-spring to early-summer blooms are real butterfly and bee magnets. In this image you can see ‘Little Devil’. It grows best in medium soil in full sun, reaching about 3 to 4 feet tall and wide. Once established it can take some periods of drought. You might also try ‘Tiny Wine’. Ninebark is native from central and eastern Canada south through North Dakota into Oklahoma, and east to Florida and New England.

Missouri Botanical Garden

Miscanthus Alternative

Miscanthus (Miscanthus spp) has big, fluffy plumes in fall that can last into winter, but it’s having some invasiveness issues in parts of the U.S.

Try Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), a tallgrass-prairie native that reaches 3 feet wide and up to 6 feet tall while in bloom. Medium to dry soil in full sun is great for this native, whose foliage often turns a nice rainbow of colors in late fall. The seed head plumes will last almost the entire winter, and it holds up well to snow — just like Miscanthus. Our native grasses are host plants to all kinds of moths and butterflies.

Shown: Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans)

Powell Gardens, Kansas City's Botanical Garden

Burning Bush Alternatives

Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) is commonly reported as invasive in many parts of the country — often far afield from our gardens, out into more natural and wild areas, where birds disperse the seeds. When we look for native alternatives, however, we don’t have to sacrifice burning bush’s gorgeous fall color.

Eastern wahoo (Euonymus atropurpureus) is a large shrub or small tree that grows to about 15 feet tall and wide. Dry to medium soil in full sun is best, but it is fairly adaptable and can handle up to 50 percent shade. Little red flowers appear in May to June, and birds gobble up the fruit at the end of the season. Wahoo is native from Minnesota to northern Texas and east.

Shown: Eastern wahoo (Euonymus atropurpureus)

Benjamin Vogt / Monarch Gardens

Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum ‘Red Feather’) is one of my favorite medium-size shrubs for medium to dry soil in full to partial sun. It’s native from Maine to Florida and west to eastern Texas. At about 8 to 10 feet tall and wide at maturity, the cultivar ‘Red Feather’ puts on a great fall show. Clusters of white flowers appear in May and June, followed by midsummer blue berries the birds devour in a day or two. (Note that you need two different cultivars of arrowwood to get berry production — ‘Blue Muffin’ is a good choice.)

For wetter soils you might also try Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica), which has stunning red foliage in autumn and white bottlebrush blooms in summer. It’s native from the Great Lakes region south to Texas and east.

There are many red and black chokeberries (Aronia spp) that also have some top-notch fall color, spring flowers and winter berries. Why plant burning bush when you can plant these wildlife-benefiting and noninvasive natives?

Shown: Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum ‘Red Feather’)

Daylily Alternatives

Daylily (Hemerocallis spp) is an easy plant to grow, but we see it everywhere — and I mean everywhere (it’s a lot like hosta in that way). The deep-throated flowers are not very appealing to the majority of insects, and insects are vital to birds, frogs, crops and more.

Blanket flower (Gaillardia aristata) grows in dry, sunny soil and is diminishing in its native range of the northern Plains, Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest. Plants will bloom all summer long and reach 1 foot to 3 feet tall, depending on moisture. Blanket flower is a favorite nectar source for the threatened Dakota skipper butterfly.

Scaly blazingstar (Liatris squarrosa) is an underused, carefree native that thrives in dry, sunny conditions, like most daylilies. It forms a clump that’s about 2 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet tall, and is native from Nebraska to Virginia and south from Georgia to Texas and Oklahoma.

Shown: Blanket flower (Gaillardia aristata)
Photo by Matt Lavin

Julie Weisenhorn, University of Minnesota

Bradford Pear Alternatives

Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’) has gotten out of hand for many, popping up in woods and meadows everywhere.

Instead, consider our native serviceberries (Amelanchier spp). Allegheny serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis). Like its relative downy serviceberry (A. arborea), it produces brilliant white flowers in late spring and loads of red to purple berries in summer that are quite tasty to both humans and birds. Fall color can be great, too. Serviceberry grows to about 15 to 30 feet tall and wide, preferring moist to slightly dry soil in sun to partial shade. It’s native from Minnesota to Alabama east and north into Canada.

Virginia chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) might be a great drought-tolerant alternative to Bradford pear, particularly the cultivar ‘Red Select’. It has white spring blooms and bright red fall color after its green leaves turn maroon. There’s no reason we need to keep planting Bradford pear when we have so many attractive and adaptable native alternatives.

Shown: Allegheny serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis)

Creating Sustainable Landscapes, LLC

Lawn Alternatives

I consider lawn to be a nonnative and invasive phenomenon. The idea of lawn comes from England, where cooler and wetter temperatures make it far more practical to grow than in most of the United States. Right now the Southwest and California are experiencing its impracticality firsthand.

Blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) is a superb drought-tolerant lawn alternative. You can keep it trimmed to look like a traditional lawn, or let it grow and see the awesome seed heads, which reach about 12 inches tall in late summer. Plant it in a hell strip, as in this image, and leave it alone. It’s native to the High Plains, Mountain West and Southwest, from Minnesota to Texas west to Idaho and Nevada and into Southern California.

Of course, there’s also a whole smorgasbord of sedges (Carex spp) to choose from.

Both blue grama and many of the sedges can handle moderate foot traffic.