by Tammy sons
Choosing Your Gardening Style
Garden types are relative to your location, climate, and purpose. Whether you’re planting to feed your family, create a world of pollinators, or just to get away from it all and have a good time gardening for therapeutic reasons, there is a style for everyone. Including native species in your garden technique will add sustainability and biodiversity and create a naturally healthy garden.
From there, start low, play around with varieties, and let your garden evolve as the world grows around you.
Gardening is an omnipresent sport with numerous styles and practices appropriate to different locations, climates, and tastes. Whether you have a big backyard, a little balcony, or a windowsill, you have a type of gardener. Explore all of these alternative methods, and you’ll have no limit to designing your paradise, especially if you incorporate native plants for sustainability and diversity.
1. Indoor Gardening
Indoor gardening brings the outside into your home, and indoors become green havens. This is often a houseplant, an herb, or a few flowers or small decorations. Indoor gardening is best practiced in sterile conditions, where pothos, ferns, or even succulents can spruce up the air and cleanse it.
For a native alternative indoors, you can grow plants in pots (spiderwort, wild violets). These plants thrive in a low-light environment and are an invisible anchor to the local ecology.
2. Outdoor Gardening
Outdoor gardening is the old school that allows gardeners to get up close and personal with the land. This category includes flower beds, garden plots, and fruit orchards. It’s better to grow native plants outdoors because they grow naturally to their climate and soil.
For an outdoor garden, mix native perennials such as black-eyed Susan, butterfly weed, or purple coneflower with edible blueberries or elderberries. These plants attract pollinators and make a garden that’s practical as well as beautiful.
3. Hydroponic Gardening
It’s hydroponic gardening – you grow plants without soil but in potable water. This new approach is ideal for cities with little space or lousy soil. We use hydroponics on leafy greens, herbs, and even small fruits.
Even though hydroponics tends to favor fast-growing produce, using native edible plants such as some forms of mint or wild spinach will give you sustainability and local character.
4. Container Gardening
One of the easiest gardening types to work with is container gardening. It involves cultivating plants in pots, tubs, or other vessels and can be used for patios, balconies, and little yards. Native plants also work well in containers and are great for urban gardeners who want a low-maintenance oasis.
Plant native species such as wild thyme or creeping oregano to create an aroma and a function for the container. You can also plant short-blooming species such as scarlet sage or milkweed to attract pollinators to your balcony or deck.
5. Raised Bed Gardening
Raised bed gardening means planting in raised beds that drain, do not compact the soil, and are more accessible to the public. This technique is great for growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers.
Plant native edible plants, such as wild onions or gooseberries, incredibly well in raised beds. These plants are eco-friendly and taste special on your produce. You can plant raised beds with pollinator flowers such as goldenrod or lupine to add diversity to the garden.
6. Vertical Gardening
Vertical gardens maximize space by orienting upward, not outward. They’re a favorite of city gardeners and those with limited soil area. This style features vines, flowers, or climbing vegetables.
Native vines (Virginia creeper, native honeysuckle, etc.) are great for vertical gardening. Not only are they gorgeous in greenery, but they also feed local birds and insects. You can add native ferns to vertical gardens for added interest and texture.
7. Community Gardening
A public garden enables members to cultivate the same plants in the same space. This collaborative model is perfect for those who do not have private gardening space but still need to get close to nature.
Native species also make excellent community garden plants because they require little maintenance and offer learning. Whether wildflowers are native to the region or fruit trees such as pawpaw, you provide pollinators food and shelter and beautify the communal area.
8. Wildlife Gardening
Wildlife gardening is about establishing a sanctuary for birds, bees, butterflies, etc. This type of gardening needs native plants, which are the basis of local ecosystems.
When beginning a wildlife garden, plant native flowers such as bee balm and Joe-Pye weed for pollinators. Shrubs such as elderberry and viburnum can feed birds. If you add water features such as ponds or bird baths, you create a habitat that will be a biodiversity hotspot in your garden.
9. Organic Gardening
Nature’s Gardening does not use artificial fertilizers and pesticides but natural techniques. This type of gardening is apt for people who want to grow food and flowers non-invasively.
Local plants are organically in tune with organic gardening. Since they are local, they will usually withstand pests and diseases without chemical application. When you combine edible native plants such as ground cherries with organic practices, you’re assured of a clean and sustainable harvest.
10. Specialty Gardening
Specialty gardening involves plants specifically designated for a particular theme or kind of vegetation (Herb gardens, water gardens, or butterfly gardens). Native plants are particularly good for special gardens as they add natural and ecological value.
A butterfly garden of milkweed and wild bergamot, for instance, tends to monarch butterflies and other pollinators. A native water garden of pickerelweed or water lilies not only looks beautiful but also cleans the water and maintains fish.
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About the Author: Tammy Sons studied Horticulture and is the Founder and CEO of TN Nursery, a family-run business rooted in her deep love for plants and gardening. With decades of experience, Tammy specializes in helping gardeners of all levels create thriving, beautiful landscapes.
