A South Charlotte homeowner initially contacted us to discuss having us help with maintenance on a front yard refresh they had engaged a local garden center to design. In describing their vision for the yard, they discussed a naturalistic English gardenesque look with a variety of perennials of different colors and bloom times. After the designer they engaged told them that wasn’t possible in Charlotte and we expressed our surprise with that, they asked us to put together a design for their main foundation planter.

The house is west/northwest facing, with trees and the house surrounding it. We treated the space as part sun as the area was bright overall and its main time of sun was mid day/early afternoon. The biggest limitation in the homeowner’s opinion was heavy deer pressure as deer had devoured most of what they had tried planting in the space.

To deer proof the design, we started by using mostly plants with the highest level of deer resistance…Prairie Dropseed, Texas sedge, Butterflyweed, Eastern blue star, Joe Pye Weed, Coreopsis, Bee Balm, Ornamental Alliums, Foxglove Beardtongue and Golden Alexander. These are all plants that deer are almost guaranteed to avoid. To allow us to include a few plants with slightly less deer resistance (Purple Coneflower, New England Aster), we used high deer resistance plants at the front of the bed to form a barrier to deer entering the bed and then surrounded the moderate deer resistant plants with high deer resistance plants. If a deer enters the bed and doesn’t leave after smelling/tasting the Coreopsis or Ornamental alliums, he will likely get a mouthful of Milkweed or Prairie Dropseed if he decides to sample the Purple Coneflowers.

In terms of the design, we kept the Lambs Ear border (member of the mint family with great deer resistance!) and used divisions to extend it towards the driveway on the right. For spring blooming perennials (right hand side) we included Golden Alexander, Eastern Bee Balm, Eastern Blue Star and Foxglove Beardtongue. Summer blooming perennials (mainly in the middle), included Millennium Allium, Moonbeam Coreopsis, Butterfly Weed, Ruby Dwarf Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Magnus Purple Coneflower and Russian Sage. Fall blooming perennials (left) included Purple Dome New England Aster and Axillary Goldenrod. The perennials were interplanted with Texas Sedge and Prairie Dropseed to provide weed suppression and textural contrast.

We planted this in the 3rd week in October. Due to the timing of planting (cool nights, shorter days), it has only needed to be watered a handful of times prior to letting nature take over. While everything is small now, it has the rest of Fall and Winter to develop it’s roots prior to next Spring’s growth. We will be providing maintenance services for this planting next year and can’t wait to watch it develop next year and in the years ahead.