9 Ways to Rewild Your Garden Without Alarming the Neighbors

Rewilding the garden works toward a resilient, functional landscape that supports habitat for pollinators, wildlife, and humans, too. The well-rounded systems incorporate a diversity of plants, especially native species, well-adapted to local growing conditions, and evolving with the insects and animals of the area. Their extensive roots improve soil conditions, infiltrate stormwater, and control erosion.

If you’re working toward rewilding your yard, you know all about the advantages of balancing our natural spaces. Being respectful of neighbors and offering a sense of order is part of that balance. Rewilded spaces can be charmingly beautiful. They transform and energize a landscape, buzzing with passive activity. 

With good planning and stewardship, the lasting gardens are more self-sustaining than they are high-maintenance. Both ornamental and ecological, a few key steps can help rewild your garden while minimizing disruption to the neighbors. Hopefully, they’ll get inspiration to follow your lead.

Evaluate Goals and the Site

Before diving in, take in the site and think about your goals for the space. Account for things to work around/with like utilities, structures, and trees. Decide if you’ll start in small pieces, add over time, or make a big sweeping change. Starting small works to get a feel for the site in its new role without shocking the neighborhood. 

Even when working in phases, it helps to have a guiding concept and plan to drive decisions. From bed layout to plant selection, a landscape design gives a foundation for the evolution. There’s a risk that comes with transformation, and not everything will look good all the time. Mistakes are okay. Nature helps sort it out. 

If you want professional expertise, enlist a garden designer. The right fit will find it a dream project. Or visit your local nursery to tap into their extensive knowledge on what works best in your area and what natives are available to attract pollinators and for durable performance with low maintenance and minimal water requirements. 

Sourcing high-quality plants is a good step toward attractive, reliable performance, something neighbors will appreciate. The National Wildlife Federation’s plant finder database is a useful tool in learning which plants are specific to your growing area and the partner insects they attract. Many states or localities have certification programs or landscape initiatives to rewild with neighbors. They often issue signs you can place in your yard to share information about the transformation.

Observe Sun, Soil, and Moisture

Observing site conditions also includes noting sun exposure, soil conditions, and drainage. Assess how sunlight moves through the space throughout the day, noting full sun and shady areas. Walls and tree canopies can shadow areas as the sun moves and influence plant selection across the garden.

The priorities for soil are composition and drainage. If the site is well-draining, many plants fit the bill. If it stays moist or has boggy areas, tailor the selection to site-specifics. If your site is mostly dry, drought-tolerant species are the way to go. Native species for your area will suit various conditions.

Screen Strategically

To increase your privacy, create a planted buffer or screen. Strategically placed buffers conceal parts of the landscape you’d rather not highlight from the street view, but also from the view inside looking out. Plus, shrub borders and trees contribute to rewilding while insulating your yard from scrutiny. Screens also add beauty; use them to define spaces and sculpt the view. Repeat plants from other areas of the garden so they blend seamlessly.

Screens are as informal as a tall perennial border or a single shrub or grouping. They can also be structural, like an evergreen hedge. To create defined borders, rely on a mix of evergreens and deciduous species. Evergreens anchor the landscape year-round and ensure a sense of enclosure. Flowering shrubs add color and fragrance and benefit pollinators and wildlife.

Layer the Landscape

A primary component of rewilding is supporting biodiversity. Grow a diversity of plant species to support a well-rounded garden system. The variation provides valuable habitat and also brings multi-season appeal, making sure there’s always something interesting happening visually.

Layering incorporates plants with different heights and forms. Choose compatible plants with overlapping growing requirements for each garden zone, and make the bulk of them native species.

Whether starting with a blank slate or working on your existing landscape, a good rule of thumb is to consider larger specimens first. Incorporate larger specimens to balance the home and embellish with lower-growing shrubs, perennials, annuals, and groundcovers. Add evergreens to each layer to offer a stable look all year.

Convert the Lawn

If you’re working with turf, determine how much you’d like to preserve. Turf may lend balance to naturalized beds in neighborhoods where there’s a homeowners association. And, it plays a role visually and functionally, depending on your yard’s uses. It helps define garden spaces and gives a clean contrast to full beds.

Starting small can be a good approach to tackling the turf. With the plan for the larger site, accomplishing it in phases and converting the lawn over time is feasible. You’ll learn what plants really work in the site as the process continues. Enlarge beds or add new ones to reduce the amount of lawn. Transition it to meadow or prairie selections, or alternative groundcovers and native grasses.

If you want to preserve some grassy areas, scale back mowing. Let it grow a bit taller between sessions.

Keep Clean Edges and Define Spaces

Clean edges along beds, borders, and walkways are a simple way to enhance curb appeal in a wild garden. They define a space without inhibiting any of the overarching goals. Stone-stacked walls, linking paths, and repeated natural elements add unity and cohesion. A clean mulched line creates an edge, too. Where plantings are loose and overflowing, a contrast in repeated materials becomes the unifier.

Garden lines are a way to boost aesthetic appeal for garden visitors and onlookers alike.  They’re an important design element and inform how we move through a space, physically and visually. They frame the site layout and include paths, bed shape, walls, patios, and pond edges. Opt for strong lines, whether curved or straight,  rather than small movements in zigzags or little waves. Pay special attention in planning to the bed lines and how their shapes relate for a pleasing read on the landscape at large.

Grow Vertically

Take advantage of vertical space to rewild with neighbors. Anything from a hanging basket to a trellis or arch becomes an opportunity to expand visual interest in an unexpected way. Verticality also maximizes growing area and takes up little ground space.

Consider a blooming native vine like coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), or passion flower (Passiflora incarnata) to climb an arch or decorate a post. These become beautiful focal points, soften structures, and define an area. Along with pots and containers, they make it possible to rewild a small space like a balcony or courtyard.

Hide the Working Parts

To rewild with neighbors, it might be helpful to conceal some of the parts that take time to break down (compost) or can look untidy (snags, brush piles, areas of bare earth). These are beneficial elements that should be part of rewilding, but it may be best to arrange them out of sight for less bother.

Many homeowners’ associations or municipalities require residents to remove leaves and fallen debris. Mainly, this relates to maintaining an overall neat appearance by keeping them from scattering about. If necessary, get the working elements out of the sightline. Move them to backyards or corners, or screen them with plantings so they’re unseen. This way, they won’t impact the visual from the street.

Wildfire risk is an important factor for arid regions prone to fire concerns; It’s possible to have a naturalized yard while following essential fire-safe gardening practices. These exist to reduce fuel buildup near structures. Adapt the concept to your local situation to work with your neighbors.

Harness Leaves Discretely

Instead of raking and clearing away fall’s natural leaf drop to match the neighborhood, get creative on retaining them for habitat and soil benefits. Native bees, butterflies, and moths nest and overwinter in fallen leaves and hollow stems. Amphibians, invertebrates, songbirds, and small mammals overwinter in the shelter of standing plants, logs, brush piles, stone walls, leaf litter, and healthy soils.

Fall’s leaf drop also offers winter insulation for plants and enriches soil nutrition as they decompose. There’s a world of biodiversity beneath the leaves, and leaving the leaves is a pollinator-friendly practice, just as essential as planting flowering perennials, shrubs, and trees.

There are ways to be subtle in leaving the leaves, like raking them into garden beds and around trees as mulch. Entire leaves are best for habitat for overwintering insects and more. If you have excess leaves, pile them (in a hidden locale, if need be) to become leaf mold, a soil conditioner to topdress beds.

Resist Cutting Back Everything in Winter

Instead of putting the garden to bed, be selective about winter cutback. This is another timeframe when many folks are busy tidying up, but some perennials are best left standing in dormancy. Their foliage and stems provide winter insulation for the crown, which is especially beneficial for marginally hardy growers in cold climates. Those with showy seed pods and fruits provide lasting seasonal interest and late forage for songbirds. Stems and branches become nesting and shelter sites for overwintering pollinators.

In the rewilding garden, winter brings high visual interest. Consider keeping those for plant health, unique interest, or ecological services intact. It may take adjusting our aesthetic to appreciate the value of a naturalistic winter garden, but it teems with life, even in dormancy. This is another opportunity where evergreens dotted throughout the landscape are valuable.