According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 20% of children aged 3-17 years have a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder. For DFW, that would be about 350,000 kids. Studies show that when children spend time in nature, their health improves. At Soils Alive, we believe that DFW's children need more community gardens and you can help. In this article, we'll show you how you can build a 400 square foot butterfly garden in your community for as little as $280. If you find 3 friends to help, with just $70 and a few hours of maintenance a year, your neighborhood can have a space for everyone to enjoy a bit of nature together.
How to Build a Community Garden
Why Build a Garden?
Erin Bunch writes about the value of community gardens in her article, "Being Outside Is Good For Your Body and Mind — Here's Why." Spending quality time in nature doesn't require taking a week-long trip out to a national park (although that probably wouldn't be a bad idea either!). It's about spending 15 minutes in nature each day, 7 days a week. Someplace close to home that you can walk to and engage with neighbors. "Studies show that you can get really good results from urban green space, like parks and gardens [with just 15 minutes a day]. You don't have to wait until you can take a vacation in the woods to reap the benefits," says Dr. Aimee Daramus, a Chicago-based psychologist who specializes in anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Dr. Heather Eliassen is a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She writes: "Green spaces also offer opportunities for social interactions and community engagement, which have been linked beneficially to multiple health outcomes. This includes not only mental health benefits such as lower rates of depression, but also physical health benefits such as lowered rates of chronic disease. While these interactions can be as simple as running into a friend while walking your dog or meeting someone new in the park, they can also be facilitated by organizations such as community gardens..."
“[Time spent outdoors] provides a combination of stimulation of different senses and a break from typical overstimulation from urban environments,” she said. “Exposure to green space results in mental restoration and increased positive emotions and decreased anxiety and rumination. Improved mindfulness can result from exposure to green space as well.”
$280 for a Community Garden
In this article, we'll show you how to build a community garden, even if you've never cared for a garden before. Use our free tools to design your community garden space, with the four designs in this article as your inspiration. A 400 square foot community butterfly garden can be built for just $280. If you can find 3 other people to help you, you can each pitch in $70 and it's paid for. Gardening is a great way to get some exercise and meet somewhere other than at at coffeeshop to chat. Your $70 creates a permanent space in the community, with perennial plants that come back every year, getting bigger each year, and open to everyone in the community who needs a space for nature therapy. That's probably one of the best ways to invest $70 into your community.
This community garden that you'll help to create will be home to 40 plants that are native or very well adapted to our hot and dry DFW summers. The ongoing cost of maintaining the garden will be minimal. With no irrigation system needed (that could break and require repairs), and no watering bills, the only ongoing cost of the garden is a bit of spring and fall maintenance of the plants. It's really an excuse to see some friends and neighbors for a bit of good exercise to keep the space looking great. These plants are generous, offering up many new free baby plants that you can take home to your own garden, or offer to friends and neighbors. At Soils Alive, we even offer PTA members who volunteer 5 hours/year $120 in annual savings on our lawn care services, for helping bring beauty to your community landscape.
A Garden For Everyone
Richardson ISD has 50 schools. What would it cost for every school to have a garden? To give the 35,000+ students of RISD a garden to explore each day would cost less than $0.50 per student. Not $0.50 per year.....$0.50 once. The City of Richardson has about 120,000 residents. If every neighborhood had a butterfly garden, 150 small gardens like these scattered at city parks would provide 100% of city residents a place to come and enjoy local wildlife.....and walk to the park and get more exercise. The plants purchased to build these gardens would raise $6000 for the Richardson Council of PTAs, supporting Richardson public school teachers. If you live by a city park, ask your HOA leaders about having your HOA adopt a site at a nearby park. Talk with your city's Parks and Recreation team to see how you can build a new butterfly garden for your entire neighborhood to enjoy.
What You'll Need
- 4 small stakes or flags
- Free mulch (from the city or ISD)
- Thick painter's paper (2 rolls, $80)
- 40, 4" plants ($200)
- 3 wheelbarrows
- 3 shovels
- 1 rake
- 4 hand trowels
- Volunteers (4 people, 4-5 hours to spread mulch, and 2 hours to install the plants).
- Annual maintenance (4 people, 8 hours in spring and another 8 in the fall).
When to Get Started
You'll want to start mulching your garden area 3 months before you plant, to give the mulch enough time to block the sunlight and rot away the grass roots underneath. If you want to install your plants April 1st, you'll want to get this step done by January 1st. If you want to install plants on October 1st, you'll want to get this step done by July 1st. If you install your plants in the spring (April 1), keep in mind that you'll need to provide extra water to these plants during their first summer. That's fine if the garden is within 100' of a water source (at a school) but that could be a problem at a city park. For areas that don't have water access, plan on installing the garden in the fall, so they won't need this supplemental watering.
Preparing the Garden Site
Check with the school or city to ensure there's no underground utilities running through your site (and get permission of course!). Then stake off four corners of the community garden site with four flags or garden stakes, set about 1' beyond the perimeter of the garden. Once staked out, have the site mowed as low as possible. Then ask to have it gone over with a string trimmer/weed-eater to scalp the grass very short, all the way to the ground level. Get your woodchips delivered as close to the garden site as possible, to avoid the work of hauling the chips far with a wheelbarrow. Dump trucks shouldn't be driving over underground irrigation pipes, so keep that in mind as you plan your delivery.
Rake away any sharp sticks/rocks that may be on the site. Preferably when the site is dry (to avoid getting moisture on the paper, which can cause it to tear, allowing grass to grow through), lay thick painter's paper across the site, with a 6" overlap on all seams. On top of this first layer, run a second layer the other direction. For a 400 SF garden, you'll need 2 rolls of 3'x166' (costs $80 for both). For a 800 SF garden, you'll need 4 rolls ($160). Worth every penny to help suppress weeds and kill the grass without using herbicide or needing to till the area.
Next spread 2" of wood chip mulch on top of the paper, starting at the perimeter of the garden. As you lay the mulch, you can push the wheelbarrow over the areas already covered to spread in towards the center. Be careful to not puncture or damage the paper, as this is what keeps the grass covered, depriving it of sunlight to rot the roots away. Any puncture is an opportunity for the grass to poke through. You can keep a few scraps of paper, in case you need to patch any "holes."
If you and three other volunteers arrive at a mowed/scalped site, with your mulch pile already delivered, with 3 wheelbarrows, 3 shovels, and 1 rake, plan on spending 4-5 hours to get this job done. Lay out the paper. Use a bit of mulch to weigh down the sides. Three people will load up and dump the chips, and the fourth will rake it to a 2" depth.
How Much Mulch?
A dump truck that's 8.5' wide by 24.5' long can haul 25 cubic yards of wood chips. That's 675 cubic feet, or enough mulch to cover a 2000 SF area 4" deep. Your garden will need just 2" of mulch. Next year, as the mulch breaks down, you'll want to add more to any bare spots in the garden. Starting out, you'll need 2.5-5 cubic yards of material (for a 400 or 800 SF area). But you can also get twice what you need, and pile the extra just outside the garden, to have for the next few years of maintenance. That's 5-10 cubic yards, or about 20-40% of a standard dump truck capacity.
Planting Day
Once the mulch has sat for at least 3 months, all the rain the site has received has kept the soil moist, where beneficial bacteria and fungi have been breaking down the grass roots. You might find earthworms have started coming to the site, with the mulch keeping the site cooler, blocking the heat of the sun, and moister as well. When it's time to plant, you can take your garden design and measure out where each plant should go.
On paper, 1" = 2 feet so you'll measure with a ruler from the paper design, and place each plant using a tape measure to where it belongs in the garden. Once all the plants are in place, then you'll dig your planting holes with a hand trowel. The plants are in 4" pots, so dig your holes about 6" deep and wide, crumbling and loosening the soil. No need to add soil amendments as these plants love the clay soils of DFW. Water in each plant with 4 cups of water. If you're far from a water source, bring 10 gallons of water for 40 plants, or 20 gallons for 80 (3 or 6, 5-gallon buckets 80% full).
400 Square Foot Meander
Here's an example of what your garden could look like. This garden has 40 plants, 2 each of 20 types (all of these 25 plants, except Four-Nerve Daisy, Black Eyed Susan, Yellow Sundrop, Prairie Verbena, and New Gold Lantana). The garden is 16' x 25', drawn on paper as 8" x 12.5". It has about 100 SF of walkway (2.5-3' wide) and 300 SF planted. With 2" deep mulch, you'll need 67 cubic feet (2.5 cubic yards). Use our garden template to create your own design.
We've designed the garden with the purpose of walking through, from either direction, with a meandering path to slow you down and take in the sights. As you enter the garden (bottom right), on your right is Catmint (S1), a low-growing (2' tall) long-blooming plant with many flowers for bees. Behind the catmint is the Copper Canyon Daisy (M11, 3' tall) which blooms in late fall and offers green leafy foliage from spring-fall that's very aromatic. Gregg's Mistflower comes next (M3), with blooms from spring through fall (requiring some maintenance to trim it back a few times a year), a fall favorite for the migrating Monarch butterfly. Then comes the Indigo Spires Salvia (T6), a bumblebee favorite with very tall, slender bloom spikes. In the back is the 5' tall Flame Acanthus (T1), for hummingbirds.
As the path curves to the left, there is Zexmenia (M7, in front of the Turks Cap), a 3' tall mounding plant with yellow blooms. Behind it is the Fall Obedient Plant (T4), blooming in late summer. White Yarrow (M4) provides white blooms in late spring. Dallas Red Lantana (M5) offers red blooms from spring through fall. Behind the lantana is the Pink Gaura (T5), with light pink blooms. Next is the Purple Coneflower (M2) for butterflies, in front of the Mexican Honeysuckle (T3) for hummingbirds. White Autumn Sage (M9) and Turks Cap (T2) are next, with Pink Skullcap (T2) in front for a low border. The final curve out of the garden is lined with Gray Goldenrod (M1), Rock Rose (M6), Mexican Oregano (M12), and Damianita (S3). Frogfruit (S4), not shown on the design, can be planted anywhere, to creep along the walkway, in both directions, with a thin, 12" tall border for small butterflies.
400 Square Foot Sitting Garden
This garden is the same size, with the same plants, but is designed with a 12' long area to sit, curving around the small planting area in the bottom middle area (with M2 at bottom, and M11 at top). A row of 12 tree stumps could be placed for children, or 6 park benches, to view the tall plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Or you could simply sit on the ground on the woodchip mulch.
Facing the garden, you'll notice the row of tall plants in the back (T1, T2, T5, and T4) which are Flame Acanthus and Turks Cap, both hummingbird attractors, and Pink Gaura and Fall Obedient Plant which are loved by bumblebees and butterflies. In front of this tall border is Dallas Red Lantana (M5), Mexican Honeysuckle (T3), and Indigo Spires Salvia (T6). Framing each side of the garden, along the entry pathways, are Gray Goldenrod (M1), Rock Rose (M6), Gregg's Mistflower (M3), Catmint (S1), and Mexican Oregano (M12). In the bottom center, there is Purple Coneflower (M2), Zexmenia (M7), White Yarrow (M4), White Autumn Sage (M9), and Copper Canyon Daisy (M11). For a low border along the entryway, Damianita (S3) and Pink Skullcap (S2). Frogfruit (S4), not shown, can be planted anywhere to trail 12" tall along the pathway.
700 Square Foot Meander
If you have a larger space available, and can find 7 volunteers to join you and pitch in $70, this garden will give you a bigger area to enjoy. It is 22' by 32' and has 80 plants, 4 each of the same 20 types. 2" deep mulch requires 117 cubic feet (4.30 cubic yards).
As you enter the garden (from the bottom), you'll see Dallas Red Lantana (M5) and White Autumn Sage (M9), long-blooming red and white flowers. Gray Goldenrod (M1), blooming in late summer, and Turks Cap (T2) are behind these. Gregg's Mistflower (M3), Flame Acanthus (T1), and Rock Rose (M6) complete the 1st half of the garden, with Frogfruit (S4) crawling along the walkway for a 12" tall thin border, alongside White Yarrow (M4).
Moving towards the exit of the garden is Indigo Spires (T6) and Fall Obedient Plant (T4), with Copper Canyon Daisy (M11) and Catmint (S1) in front. Next comes Mexican Honeysuckle (T3), Pink Gaura (T5), Zexmenia (M7), and Mexican Oregano (M12). Finishing the entry/exit is Purple Coneflower (M2), Damianita (S3) and Pink Skullcap (S2)
800 Square Foot Sitting Garden
A bit larger, at 24' by 32' (128 cubic feet of mulch, 4.75 cubic yards), this garden provides a 14' long seating area, facing an amphitheater-style planting area to showcase hummingbird and butterfly attracting blooms. In the very back are the 5' tall Flame Acanthus (T1) and in front are 4' tall Turks Cap (T2), 3' tall Purple Coneflower (M2), 2' tall (when pruned a bit) Mexican Oregano (M12), and 2' tall Catmint (S1) and 12" tall Frogfruit (S4)......a descending wall of long-blooming plants for hummingbirds and butterflies.
On both sides of this central view are, from the back, Fall Obedient Plant (T4, 5'), Mexican Honeysuckle (T3, 4'), Indigo Spires Salvia (T6, 4'), Gregg's Mistflower (M3, 3'), Zexmenia (M7, 3'), Pink Gaura (T5, 5'), Rock Rose (M6, 4') Copper Canyon Daisy (M11, 3'), and Damianita (S3, 2'). Gray Goldenrod (M1, 3') and Dallas Red Lantana (M5, 3') frame the entrance. In the center, behind the 14' long seating area, all 3' or shorter is a row of White Autumn Sage (M9) and White Yarrow (M4), with Pink Skullcap (S2) on either side.