According to Graham Laird Gardner, you don’t have to have vast acreage to be able to enjoy the look and feel of a wildflower meadow. “Three plants in a container could potentially meet this concept,” Gardner says. He’s the author of the forthcoming book, Tiny + Wild: Build a Small-Scale Meadow Anywhere.
Much of Gardner’s guidance aims to help readers work the “wildness” of more naturalized gardening into their own landscapes—without losing sight of their specific goals.
(Some of these goals could include attracting and supporting native pollinators, mitigating the need to mow especially tricky terrain or, perhaps, screening an unsightly view.)
Tiny + Wild explores site evaluation, design ideas, plant choices, seed starting, plant installation, long-term meadow management and more. Gardner also covers plant choices for different kinds of space constraints and growing conditions.