In this guide, we'll show you how to design your butterfly garden, how to prepare your site, and take care of the plants. Are you a PTA member? Save $60/year on organic lawn care from Soils Alive. Organic lawn care, before discounts, is $55/month for 6 annual treatments (5000 SF lawn). Soils Alive sells native plants to help raise money for public school PTAs. In this guide, we'll show you how to create your garden with $100 for plants and about $50 for other materials.
Building Your Butterfly Garden at Home
Build Your Garden for $150
This guide helps you build a 150 square foot garden at your home with 20 native plants in 2 days for $150. Your 20 plants will cost $100 and you'll need about $50 for 12 bags of mulch. And that's it. You don't have to have a stone/metal edge border around your garden. But if you did want to add this, plan on spending about $250 more (80 stones).
Why Native Plants?
Hot and dry DFW summers and unpredictable cold snaps in the winter are making it much harder to keep non-native plants alive. With the price of water going up, as the DFW population continues to grow, and use of water going up with hotter summers, native plants reduce the cost of maintaining your landscape. These plants love our DFW soil. Non-native plants attract much less wildlife and require more expensive soil amendments before planting.
150 Square Feet in Full Sun
The first step for creating your garden is finding space on your property that gets full sun, at least 6 hours. More sun means more flowers....which means more butterflies and hummingbirds. 150 square feet can be a 10x15 foot rectangle, or a circle with a 14 foot diameter. Or you could do a very long garden......30 feet by 5 feet wide.
Learn About the Plants
Take some time to get to know each of these plants that we sell. We sell trays of 20 plants. We guarantee you'll receive at least 10 different types of plants, 2 of each type (inventory fluctuates throughout the year). These are all perennials, so they come back every year. They're also very resilient and need very little water once established. In addition to our 20 plants, you'll want to go by your local garden center and buy a few Dill, Fennel, and Parsley plants. The Swallowtail butterfly lays its eggs on these plants, so that you'll have plenty of butterflies in your garden.
Check for Utilities
Once you've found a space with 6+ hours of sun, you've learned about the plants, now it's time to think about a layout. Texas state law requires that you contact utilities to mark the area, before you dig. You can put in your request right here.
You'll be asked for the Depth of Excavation, which will be 6" (2" of sod, 4" of soil). Wait 2 business days for them to come out and mark the area. If there's no utilities, you're fine to proceed. If there are utilities indicated, they may be buried deeper than 6". That doesn't mean you should put the garden there. Keep in mind, if there's a utility, there may be a property easement on your property, giving the utility access to this area for repairs. That means they could come and dig up your garden. Better to locate your garden away from utilities, unless you're okay with that risk (most native plants can also be dug up and moved somewhere else, if needed, unlike big shrubs and trees).
Create Your Design
It's very easy to design your garden. You can use our free garden design template. When you buy your plants, we send you a copy you can download and print out. When we place the order, we also let you know which plants are in stock, so you can design with the specific plants you're getting. If you have a space that's 300 square feet, you could buy 40 plants. Just print out two sheets and design with 2 plants of each type. If your neighborhood has an HOA, these plants should be permitted (they are drought-tolerant and reduce your water bill), even in the front yard. Your HOA might require that you place a border around the garden (metal, pavers, or stone). Check with your HOA before you install the garden, just to be sure. Or put the garden in the backyard.
Preparing Your Site
Once you have a layout for your garden, and you know where each plant will go, it's time to prep your site. You can hire a landscaper, or go DIY. If the site currently has turfgrass, you'll want to take a shovel and cut the perimeter of the space, and remove all the grass in 12" x 12" slices about 2" deep. That's 150 pieces. You can load them in a wheelbarrow, and pile them upside down where they can decompose into compost, or have your landscaper haul them off. Or relocate the turf somewhere that you need more grass to grow.
Our native DFW clay soil is perfectly fine for these plants. Just loosen it up a bit with a garden fork. Not required, but if you want you could mix in 4-5 bags of compost too. For weed control, don't use a synthetic/plastic weed barrier. Soils Alive has seen this stuff for many years. Take our word for it....don't put this stuff in your garden to keep out weeds. What will happen is that grasses and other weeds can still grow on top (in the mulch), and their roots can grow through the barrier, creating a big mess. It's very hard to rip out once you put it in.
If you're worried about weeds, use a thick painter's paper (like two of these rolls for $24) that will biodegrade after 6 months. Honestly, though, it's the 2" of mulch that blocks the sunlight, preventing weed seeds from germinating. You're still going to need to pull weeds.....from seeds that blow in and fall on top of your mulch. Thick painter's paper will block many of these seeds.
For your perimeter of the garden, you might consider metal edging for speed of installation. It's a bit pricey, though. Stone edging is less expensive, but might be a little more work. Or you can leave a bare edge, trimming the grass with a shovel, to save. Nothing fancy. Pull out any grass stolons or rhizomes that try to get back into the garden bed.
Installing the Native Plants
Once you've spread the mulch, give the garden a light watering. Just enough to moisten the soil and the mulch....not sopping wet. Next look at your design layout and place each plant pot where it belongs in the space. Your plants will be in a 4" pot. That means you'll need a hand trowel to dig holes 4" wide and 4" deep to plant them. It's better to dig a little deeper and a little wider, and crumble up the soil to help the plant roots get established.
Water in the plants with about 4-5 cups of water each, so the surrounding soil is moist. Make sure the roots are buried directly at soil-level.....no exposed roots. Lightly press down on the soil to firm it around the roots. No air pockets. Also make sure they're not buried too deep....no soil covering the stem of the plant. Carefully bring the mulch around the plant, no more than 1" deep right by the plant stem. The stem should poke out with no mulch directly touching the stem, so it will stay dry.
When to Plant
It's best to install your plants in the fall, anytime from September 1 to November 10. Or spring before May 20th. Native plants love to be planted in the fall, because they can put down deep roots before they experience summer heat. Next year, their roots will be well-established to do great during a hot DFW summer. You can also plant during March 20-May 20, but you'll want to give them some water once a week during their first summer. You could get a $12 soaker hose to help with this.
Maintaining the Garden
Thanks to the mulch, the garden will be weed-free on Day 1. The first year, you'll want to monitor for weeds and make sure to remove any before they go to seed. Keep at least 1" of mulch throughout the garden at all times to prevent light from reaching the soil, which will prevent weeds that require light to germinate.
Native Plants will naturally die back in the winter, after the frost (around November 20). They'll return in the spring. If you have an HOA, they might want you to tidy up the garden in the fall (if in the front yard). You can trim all the stems and pile them up in the backyard, for wildlife habitat. Did you know that bugs overwinter on these stems? If it's a backyard garden, you can leave the dead stems in place if you like.
In the spring, at the latest by February 1, you'll cut back the old dead stems, before new growth emerges. In early spring, many natives benefit from being tip-pruned for a bushier, more compact appearance and more blooms. Tip-pruning just means cutting or pinching the growing tip off, encouraging more side shoots. Our plant list offers maintenance tips for each one, helping you keep your garden looking nice. In the springtime, go out once a week in the morning with a cup of tea or coffee, and just pinch the growing tips off, until June 1st. Let them bloom after June 1. The plants that love this include: flame acanthus, gregg's mistflower, lantana, pink skullcap, mexican oregano, copper canyon daisy, catmint, pink gaura, indigo spires salvia, turks cap, and autumn sage.
Free Plants!
Did you know native plants are generous? Many of the Big Box store plants are hybrids and they're bred to be sterile. No seeds, or seeds won't germinate. Natives are different. It's quite common to get 5 or more free baby plants off of just one mother plant that you purchased.
Some plants put out roots, that pop up nearby as another plant. These are rhizomes, just like Bermuda or St. Augustine grass. You can cut these in spring or fall, and move the plants to expand your garden, or give them away. These plants include: gregg's mistflower, goldenrod, purple coneflower, fall obedient plant, and yarrow. 12 months after you install a 4" plant, the following spring you'll start seeing new plants popping up nearby. You can cut the rot, dig it up, and move it to another part of the garden. Many other native plants produce plenty of seeds you can scatter around for more free plants.
Less Pesticides = More Butterflies
Lawn chemicals harm butterfly eggs, caterpillars, and adults. If you want more butterflies, use less chemicals. Herbicide is a common type of chemical that can harm insects (not just weeds). You can spot treat weeds, instead of spraying herbicide everywhere, to cut down on your use by 80%. Or you could go 100% organic. It's also probably better for pets (and kids).
Soils Alive takes a soil-first approach to healthy lawn care. We focus on the overall health of your turfgrass with an organic soil amendment, our Liquid Compost, to get thicker, healthier grass that doesn't need as many pesticides to keep looking nice. We believe that using less (or no) pesticides on our lawns and at schools creates safer spaces for children to play. Using fewer (or no) pesticides reduces the risk of harming butterfly larvae, that way you have the most butterflies possible in your garden.
More Learning Resources
Connect with the garden club at your public school PTA. Or create a garden club, to meet other gardeners and share tips and ideas. If your school has a space for a 150 square foot garden, buy some plants and create a garden at your school. For more tips on caring for native plants, a great source of free info is the Native Plant Society of Texas, which has 4 local chapters in DFW. You can find their events, Zoom training, and other resources on their website. Another website to check out is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. You can type in the Common Name of native plants and find more photos of the plants and learn more about how to care for them.
After you buy your plants with us, our of our Account Managers will also email you more tips and recommendations. PTA members get $60/off organic lawn care. And if you volunteer 5 hours (or more) at your school, you'll get another $60 off. As you start gardening, you'll have lots of questions. It's okay to jump in and plant your garden, even if you're still feeling quite new to gardening. We will help you begin, and you'll learn as you go. You'll make some mistakes. That's what makes you a real gardener!