About me
Hello, I’m Patrick Higgins, the guy behind this site. I'd like to tell you a little story of how I went native.
As crazy as it sounds, it all started as a young boy, around age 11 when my dad gave me free reign to do what I wanted with a garden.
Now this was with a square garden outlined with creosote-coated railroad ties. Hey, it was something right? I decided I wanted to plant 4 rows of 4 plants each. Of daylilies. This was just the beginning of my journey and evolution.
I was only 11 but I had the whole “plant it in lines” and use the same non-native plant technique down…well…pat. You know, kind of like almost every yard you still drive by to this day and this was back in 1981!
Over the next couple of years, I acquired a bunny rabbit that I kept in a hutch and since I didn’t know what to do with his manure, and I was responsible to keep it from piling up under the hutch, I took the lazy route and I simply scooped it with a shovel and threw it in the closest location; and that was right into my garden. We also had a lot of trees around the yard and I started raking the leaves into the garden every fall; mainly because I didn’t want to have to weed so much. It didn’t take long to see a transformation in those daylilies. Rabbit manure, layers of leaves breaking down, and minimal weed competition and I had the daylily bed of all daylily beds!
And then, one day, I noticed something I had never noticed before. My garden didn’t have any of the activity that my dad’s gardens had.
Dad allowed his gardens to be a blend of native plants (even though I think we just called them weeds back then but he liked them) and some non-natives with a much less formal, free flowing, slightly “messier”, approach. Whenever I talk to my dad today about gardening he says his style has always been what he considers “looser”.
And you know what his gardens had? Birds. They had caterpillars. There were bees and butterflies. My garden had, well, pretty flowers. In lines.
Fast forward to the end of the following year and I asked my dad if I could change my garden. He was quietly pleased I think. Now, I was a young teen at that time so transforming my garden still required some level of impending boy danger so instead of just pulling the daylilies, I piled the garden with dried leaves, poured on some form of highly flammable propellant I found in the shed, and promptly threw a match on it to burn it all to the ground! I definitely got in trouble for that one but I had a pretty clean slate to work with the following spring. And new eyebrows to grow back.
I still didn’t know the difference back then between native and non-native. I was aware of invasives and we did what we could to keep the honeysuckle at bay but when I went to design my garden that spring I went with the “looser” approach of my dad and decided I’d spread wildflower seeds. I was so excited to see how they’d germinate and if it would be a random mess or if they would even come up.
They came up. It was a beautiful transformation from my clean lines to a garden now bursting with non-natives such as Zinnias, Cosmos, Cornflower, and Candytuft but also transitioning over the years to primarily Purple Coneflower, Blanket Flower, Black-Eyed Susan, and Coreopsis. I. Was. Hooked!
My mom’s steadfast approach to orderliness and cleanliness along with a superb vision for design, combined with my dad’s artistic eye and his continual modifications to get things exactly like he wants, afforded me a unique design aesthetic that I would not have had otherwise. I lived with it daily and appreciated our house and yard immensely. It has created in me a very house-proud approach to my own yard and home to this day.
In addition to those days of gardening with my dad and having the freedom to experiment, I spent countless hours and hours with my brother (Mike), and many neighborhood boys roaming the woods and fields surrounding the area where I grew up. There was something magical about climbing huge Oak trees, making forts, and running with Milkweed pods to create a “cloud” of floating seeds.
We caught snakes and frogs, hooted for owls, waded in creeks looking for crayfish (crawdads), and tossed grasshoppers into garden spider webs. I didn’t recognize it as a young boy, but I was fostering a love for, and connection with, the natural world. I was both interacting, albeit at a juvenile level, and connecting with all of the native flora and fauna that was around me. This interaction created a love for nature and I realized it could happen right where we live. I still crave this interaction and connection to this day.
After my childhood, and prior to owning my first home, I received a degree in Watershed Resources, Policy, and Planning. This was an Environmental Science degree being offered for the first time at The Ohio State University. As part of this program, I took classes in dendrology where I took tests that required you to identify both the common and scientific name of 30+ trees by their leaves only, and then, by their twig, bud, or bark only. I thought it was amazing!
With that love of the outdoors I thought I wanted to live on a mountain and be outside my whole life. I, in fact, did live on a mountain when I had a brief stint living on Mt. Rainier conducting water quality studies for a summer. But I met an amazing girl and I made a decision. One that brought me back to Ohio and one that I don’t regret.
Upon coming back to Ohio, I worked on an Ohio EPA 319 grant with the combined Greene County and Clark County Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) along with the local Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). This was for a project called the Upper Little Miami River Restoration project (the Little Miami River in SW Ohio was the first state and national scenic river).
At the time, I was responsible for establishing grassed waterways on agricultural land and to create riparian corridors to help protect the river. It was the most successful 319 grant at the time in terms of the number of acres of at-risk agricultural land being converted. And what was so cool was that I got to plant hundreds and hundreds of native trees along the river. To be outside on most days and working by spending the day planting trees like Oak, Sycamore, and Cottonwood. I can still drive by those locations today and see those trees nearly 30 years on. It’s so satisfying.
In essence, these would be considered my formative years in garden design and aesthetic. This time was also extremely important in terms of experimentation and modifications. It helped me understand that a garden can evolve and transform, that soil can be improved, that I could get compost from the stuff that most people burn or throw away, that I can move a plant as I see fit, that certain plants are more beneficial than others, and it gave me, as a young boy, a real life land lab.
I still approach my yard with this experimentation mindset today. We’ve been fed so many gardening rules that we think there is one certain way to garden. This is so far from the truth. There is only your way to garden on your own property but you can have more success as a gardener, for the local ecosystem, and for the planet by following a few simple principles.
“Your garden is a protest. It is a place of defiant compassion. It is a space to help sustain wildlife and ecosystem function while providing an aesthetic that moves you.” > Benjamin Vogt, A New Garden Ethic
Fortunately today, we have a far greater understanding and my journey continues, but I’ve come to the conclusion that our goals should be to:
- plant native plants (trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, vines)
- remove invasive plants (even if they’re pretty – I’m looking at you Butterfly Bush and Burning Bush)
- eliminate pesticides (let what you’re attracting thrive and balance out)
- and reduce the size of your lawn (it’s a wasteland of time and resources with no benefit)
How you garden and what your yard looks like may be different but these are the basic tenants of how we should approach our uniqueness. Yes, you can have a formal garden with native plants, you can attract imperiled wildlife on a small property, and you can provide life-sustaining flowers to local pollinators in pots on a balcony garden.
As I began my journey into home ownership, me and my wife’s (Cari) love for being outside and working on our properties curated the knowledge required to truly go native which is a journey we’re still working towards to this day.
When we acquired our first house we were so excited. It was a corner lot with nearly ¾ of an acre. It had the obligatory Silver Maples planted out front that most homes in the Midwest had planted as the standard landscape tree at the time. At least it was a bit better than the danged Bradford Pears that were to follow as the standard builder’s tree.
We also had an Eastern White Pine, River Birch, and a Dogwood. We quickly added two Autumn Purple Ash trees, Fraxinus americana “Autumn Purple”, with little knowledge of nativars. In fact, I was assured at the nursery where I bought both trees that they were in fact native. I felt so good because I knew I wanted something different and I wanted something native. However, at that time, I was limited to either digging trees up out of the woods and transplanting them or finding a nursery who had something other than Callery Pears, Japanese Maples, and Norway Spruces.
We bought those ash trees before we even bought a couch. Cari has put up with more of these situations than I can even recall. She has the patience required to allow a garden and plants to evolve and helps me slow down to see this. I can’t force my vision; nature and patience have to guide my hand.
In addition, this house had 7 very large formal gardens that were in an advanced state of nature doing its thing. These gardens were actually rose gardens by the somewhat famous, in the rose world, Dr. William Pavey and Betty Pavey.
Mrs. William H. (“Betty”) Pavey received the first Presidential Citation from the American Rose Society for her book Say It With Roses, that was presented to the American Rose Society. Betty received the ARS Gold Medal (the highest award offered by the American Rose Society) in 1984. Dr. and Mrs. Pavey won every outstanding trophy presented at the ARS national rose shows. Dr. Pavey was named “Outstanding Rosarian of the ARS” in 1964.
They spent time on various boards and as experts in the rose world. Betty also had several awards named after her, she was a Regional Director of the ARS, and she received the first and only Presidential Citation for authoring The Rose Arrangement Rules book.
That meant I inherited several large gardens that used to be tended by well-known rosarians that hadn’t been tended to for years. My wife and I moved all surviving roses into 2 large beds and created new signage for the many hybrids that were created by the Pavey’s and named by them. It was an honor to inherit those plants and I can tell you that the Pavey’s completely understood the importance of soil. That was the best soil I’ve ever worked with.
However, those roses took a lot of time. They took a lot of water. They took a lot of tending. And about the only thing we ever noticed using them were aphids and Japanese beetles. So we resorted to also having to use chemicals on them or risk them being destroyed. For all of their beauty, it wasn’t the way I wanted to garden. It took me back to my daylily days of pretty flowers in lines with seemingly no ecological benefit.
We made the decision to do what we could to honor the legacy of those roses but we knew we wanted more out of our gardens and yard. There was no talk or knowledge of pocket prairies at that time. Well, to be fair, there was also no social media so there was no way to know about it or get the word out. And our local nurseries weren’t telling anyone about it. However, we took the remaining 5 rose gardens and made our own little prairies. Even though they were nice, neat rectangular gardens, we still absolutely stuffed them with flowers. Anything we could acquire honestly, and without much rhyme or reason beyond they were awesome, pretty, cool, or attracted birds, bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Once again, information sharing was limited so we just learned and edited on the fly. We had Purple Coneflower, Peonies, Cosmos, Lilies, Coreopsis, Black-Eyed Susan, Hollyhocks, Zinnias, and anything we could acquire cheaply, or free, at the local nurseries.
In fact, the nurseries got to know me so well that they allowed me to go to their “trash piles” of flowers and plants that they couldn’t sell, or rather, that no one would buy, because they were broken, or wilting, or root bound. I felt like we were visiting the Island of Misfit Toys from the Rudolph Christmas show. Except, this was The Trashpile of Misfit Plants, and I got to take them for free! I could not believe how resilient plants were, or are, and once planted, these plants showed their appreciation by growing, blooming, multiplying, and providing seeds.
We weren’t at this property too long before I was then able to tackle the challenging task of working with, and creating gardens on the soil left after new construction. As excited as we were to move into our newly built house, I was aghast at the soil I was left with on my 0.22 acre plot. Clay, sand, remnants of fast food and cigarette wrappers, and chunks of concrete where they must have had a little extra left in the truck that I’m sure they accidentally left on my property. We subsequently found out that the developer was embroiled in legal troubles for skimming the topsoil off of the plots they sold and sold it for profit. SO, I was really starting from a blank slate.
My first victory on this property was the fact that I noticed all of the new houses were getting Bradford Pear trees and Burning Bushes, neither of which I wanted and this was 1997. I was at least able to get them to swap the pear for a Sugar Maple and the bushes for Boxwood which was the only other option they gave me. This wasn’t without some additional effort though. I actually called them the morning they were supposed to deliver my landscaping plants and asked the guy to go to the truck and tell me what plants were tagged for “Higgins.” Believe it or not, they had Burning Bushes and a Bradford Pear on there for me…. I made the guy switch them out while I was on the phone. On top of all of that, they then planted the Sugar Maple about 10 feet from my house so I had to subsequently dig it up and replant it. Oh boy…
However, through the years, we were able to use a lot of compost and leaves from the forest we lived on the edge of to slowly improve the soil. We also used more and more native plants that just seemed happy to grow as long as I sited them properly.
I lived there 22 years so I had a long time to design gardens, move plants, and see what worked well with other plants and in what locations. This property was a real life land lab for me as I slowly reduced the size of the lawn (which was already pretty small), while planting native plants (which were hard to source), refraining from the use of pesticides, and removing invasive plants (two large burning bushes and six large Tree-of-Heavens).
During this time, I was able to add a White Ash, White Oak, Viburnum, Spicebush, two Ohio Buckeyes, two Flowering Dogwoods, and multiple native flowering plants such as; Purple Coneflower, Joe-Pye Weed, Bee Balm, Coreopsis, Phlox, Hyssop, and Ohio Spiderwort.
In retrospect, what was really interesting about this whole process at this house, was I knew relatively little about native plants, cultivars, nativars, etc. I became more and more aware of invasive plants and I knew I already had a disdain for Bradford Pear trees that is even more intense to this day. What I did know was that I didn’t want my yard to look like every other yard and I knew the plants that were harder to find at the local nurseries tended to attract more insects and bees. My own research and observations drove my continual efforts in my yard.
I was happy to remove a plant if I found out it was invasive or if there was a plant providing no benefit to local pollinators but taking up space in my limited garden area. I planted and eventually removed a lot of plants. I planted and moved a lot of plants to new locations. I observed a lot of activity on some plants so added more of them. You would have thought I had 10 acres as much time as I spent in that yard. It was wonderful.
As validation for these efforts I actually won the city-wide beautification award presented by the Mayor two times. A little 0.22 acre yard on the end of a dead end street. This wasn’t a participation trophy. I was nominated by someone and 10 properties were evaluated from the final nominations so there was enough garden design using native plants to make those unaware of native landscaping appreciative of it. I was proud of that yard that looked different from the other 90+ yards in the neighborhood.
It was one of the hardest parts about moving from that house. But, I was able to move into my current home that has 5 acres!
I’ve been at this house now for a little over three years. And…I was starting once again with a clean slate. The previous owner was diametrically opposite of me. The property when I moved in had 9 Colorado Blue Spruces, 2 Bradford Pears, 2 Spireaes, 12 Boxwoods, multiple non-native ornamental grasses and Stella D-Oro Daylillies. The only native plants are a large White Pine and 3 Persimmons on a fenceline my awesome new neighbor convinced the previous owner to keep.
In addition, the grass was treated six times a year and there was a contract for five “mosquito” sprayings a year. I quickly canceled these once I realized they still planned on finishing out the already paid for contract. I told them thanks, but no thanks.
The first actions we took that first fall we moved in were to rent a sod cutter and remove sod for six raised beds for vegetable gardens for my wife and two new flower beds. In addition, I went ahead and physically removed sod with a spade and wheelbarrow in another area. All three of these gardens are now absolutely filled with native plants and now that they are much easier to acquire I have so many cool new plants I’ve never had before. Rattlesnake Master, Milkweeds, Hairy Beardtongue, Indigo, Quinine, Boneset, Mountain Mint, Ohio Goldenrod, Dense Blazing Star, Hoary Skullcap and so much more. It’s so amazing to add new plants and see what uses them. I honestly had no idea how many wasps use these plants until I was able to move into here and experiment and observe.
I have mentioned observation a couple times now. I think this is extremely important for any gardener. Especially when planting native plants. It’s just amazing what you’ll see. Due to COVID, I now work from home full-time and I can take a break and wander around my garden between meetings and during lunch. I can’t even tell you how many pictures and videos I’ve taken while out and about in the yard. My poor wife gets texts all day with pictures of caterpillars, moths, butterflies, and crazy insects I’ve never seen before. If you plant petunias, begonias, and peonies you won’t have much to observe but when you go native, you will find reasons to get outside and just observe.
In addition to these garden beds, I’ve also planted 100+ native trees and shrubs. (And I’m taking the second Bradford Pear down as I write this). I have multiple re-wilded areas that I manage, and I’ve created a large prairie that I just seeded part of the expansion.
I have tested creating native gardens using the following methods;
- a sod cutter
- physically removing sod by hand
- lasagna gardening by layering straw, grass clippings, cardboard, and mulch
- tilling
- glyphosate to create larger areas.
I’ve had success with all methods but I’d say the most difficulty with the tilled area. It’s also in a tough location but it has the most weed pressure. In fact, the tilling method alone requires infinitely more patience than I have when I want to create a new garden.
The most important point is that I am experimenting and learning to see what works for me and on my property. I will keep documenting it and sharing it.
I have more plans on this property and for Patrick Goes Native. I hope you enjoy following my journey and learning from my successes and mistakes.
Remember, it’s gardening and landscaping, have fun! I am getting to bring ideas to life, learn new plants and how they associate with one another and how they’re used by insects, dig in the dirt, and work with people who are passionate about learning and experimenting on their own. We are, collectively, changing decades of gardening ideologies that are not what we need to practice to affect change.
We can do this. One person, one yard, one garden at a time. Let’s go native!
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