This spring marked four years that the shop has been open at our Magazine Street location! And while there's much to love about the storefront here, keeping plants alive on a busy street with limited access to water and scorching summer sun has been a real struggle. But I think I finally figured it out-- with a fully native little garden that will last!
Here's the story!
In the past, it'd go like this:
I freak out that the front of the store looks drab and dull and no one is noticing it and coming in. Thus I rush out to get more plants, unprepared, late in the evening after work... which means struggling to find natives that definitely aren't sold at big box stores, and surprisingly don't seem to be very well stocked in many of our local nurseries either.
So I'd get some random, currently flowering annuals, throw them in terracotta pots and they'd be cute and alive for a while as I filled pitcher-after-vintage-Pyrex-pitcher with water from the bathroom tap, carrying each one outside to water every pot, every day.
And then eventually I would get distracted and forget and they would all die. Or succumb to aphids and then die. And I would be demoralized until such time as I panicked into doing it again.
After the last round, I knew something had to change.
I needed to plan, be prepared, save money. Do it right--as I do in other aspects of my life but couldn't seem to manage with this.
It meant actually planting native plants, both because of their critical importance to local pollinators but also because they're perennials that will actually SURVIVE HERE. And maybe then I won't have to be stuck in this consumer cycle of buy-plant-die forever.
That being said, I had intended to put it off until the fall. Mostly because the start of 2025 has been so hard with everything going on in our country (to say the least) that my motivation for anything extra was pretty nonexistent.
But after reading the new research that came out in April about how bee populations are struggling even more than expected--and accepting that the front of the store needed some major sprucing up--I decided to get going.
And to be honest, it's been really uplifting--a source of joy to check out how much my plants are now THRIVING every day.
So here's what helped me finally do this right:
No. 1: Sketching out & measuring how I could use planter boxes instead of pots, even if the boxes had to be narrower to accommodate the space.
We have boxes at home for our veggies and seeing those, it just felt like things would be easier to manage at the shop with more height available + more dirt and growing room than I could get with pots.
I also thought boxes would better cover up the barren concrete pad in the front of the shop. And, I wanted to put in plants that will grow tall and lush, creating a real pollinator haven and attracting more people walking by--while also getting their attention for the store.
Considering both wood and metal boxes, I ultimately decided wood would look better against the wrought iron fence, and went with cedar as the most rot-resistant based on what I read online.
As you can guess, there would be no purchase of plastic lining that would degrade over time and possibly harm all the little critters I hope to attract. I thought about lining them with cardboard instead, but I couldn't get a clear answer on whether or not that would actually extend the lifespan of the boxes. So I skipped it. The boxes have a raised bottom with holes for water to drain so nothing else was really needed. I know in a few years they'll likely need repairs or replacing, but I think I'll be able to handle it rather than having gross plastic stuff ☺️
No. 2: Schmelly's dump truck premium soil delivery!
With the planter boxes I was going to need a lot more dirt, and I've always hated the plastic bags used for soil at gardening centers. With Schmelly's, you can actually go to their location and purchase bulk dirt using your own containers, or you can schedule a delivery! This was a lot easier and less intimidating than I thought it would be. And it turns out I actually did need that much dirt.
On their website, Schmelly's has a very easy calculator to help you determine how much dirt you'll need for your project. Based on the size of my planters I would have needed what amounted to 40 five-gallon buckets' worth of dirt, and I was not about to haul that in our car!
I ended up ordering one full cubic yard for delivery, which was less expensive than what it would have cost to buy that many bags of dirt at a garden center, even with the delivery fee included.
AND, I got their premium soil blend so I didn't have to purchase any additional compost to layer in. The only thing I mixed with the soil was a little organic starter plant food.
But the coolest part of this step is that Schmelly's accepts drop-off of local food scraps for composting, so all of this dirt was made from our local community diverting their food waste from the landfill!
I love that circular economy for us!
No. 3: Using the Big Easy Native Plant Guide to help me choose which plants.
This guide is written for our specific geographical location, and it has recommendations for big and small plants, for both sun and shade. I carry this book in the shop and am so lucky and grateful to have the author, Susan Norris Davis, as a customer so I could also get her help and advice in person!
And not surprisingly, it turns out that many of our shop customers love native plants and are happy to chat about them, what they've found and planted in their own yards! So find yourself a native plant enthusiast and get them talking! You can also purchase the native plant guide here, or it's available at the library!
The main thing I learned is that some of the natives here really do get HUGE, and some of the ones I considered would be way too big for even my largest planters. Example: I wanted goldenrod because it's so pretty and a fall bloomer, but learned it will really spread and be too large for the space.
Make sure you do a little research specifically on size or talk with someone when purchasing to confirm the plants you want will be okay for your space.
No. 4: Putting in a timed watering system.
When I dug out the existing hedges in the front of the shop to give them away to a customer, I discovered to my delight that there was already a small drip irrigation system that had gotten buried over time, running under the porch to the faraway spigot. Considering how much difficulty I had watering plants in the past, this will be a literal plant lifesaver!
And let me just clarify--lest you might be intimated by the word "system," as I was-- this is nothing fancy or professionally engineered like a whole lawn sprinkler system or something. it's basically one big hose running from the main spigot with a bunch of small hoses poked into the side of it that shoot off to your plants.
Maybe other people already know this, but for some reason the idea of "irrigation system" really gave me anxiety, even though it turned out to be pretty simple.
Adding more tubing/hose pieces so they run to all of the boxes is not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be. I will say that there are an overwhelming number of options for how many different things you can add onto the ends of these little hoses like drippers and sprinklers; but basically you decide where you need the water to reach by either dripping or spraying and then pick the end pieces and poke or stake them into the dirt.
The art of the thing will come in hiding the hoses as they travel to your different planter locations.
I don't know where to buy these locally, but we got the rest of what I needed from Lowe's. You can see what they look like here-- they have a variety of kits and individual pieces. The biggest expense was actually getting a timer to attach to it so I can schedule the water to turn on and off automatically.
And last but certainly not least, the biggest thing I needed to do in setting this all up was...
No. 5: Planning for the fact that it takes a little time and coordination to source your native plants. Consider it a work-in-progress, make it a relaxing hobby, and have patience (difficult, I know).
Just don't expect to find much in a normal garden center with normal operating hours!
Certainly not big box stores. Other places around town are hit or miss so I recommend calling first if you're looking for something specific. We were able to get some native shade plants for our house at Harold's but the selection was much more limited than the sources mentioned below.
For extensive resources and info about native plants check out the Louisiana Native Plant Society and The Native Plant Initiative of Greater New Orleans
The best places I know of to BUY native plants are the following. If you know of additional sources, please let me know and I will add them!
The number one recommendation I have for getting native plants, and where I got 90% of mine, is from local landscape horticulturist Tammany Baumgarten. She specializes in habitat gardens and native plants, and grows a large variety herself, which you can purchase directly from her by appointment. She has an inventory list posted on her website here.
Chickadee Natives
Sadly, Chickadee Natives will be closing this year, but as of this writing they will be at the Crescent City Farmers Market on May 22 and May 29 (their last market) with a wide variety of plants. Check their website or Instagram page for any additional updates and they work to clear the remainder of their inventory.
Pelican Greenhouse Plant Sales
Pelican Greenhouse at City Park has plant sales a few times a year, including a good selection of native plants. These sales are HIGHLY ANTICIPATED, and when I went out to the one at the beginning of May it was BANANAS!! So you'll want to get on the City Park Conservancy email list and/ or follow their calendar of events and mark the dates so you don't miss it-- especially if you're looking for specific plants.
They post a list of what's for sale a few days ahead of time so you can strategize.
Plan to arrive before the sale begins at 8am. To give you an idea, when I went I arrived at 8:15am on the first day, and there was only 1 left of the plant I needed, and there were already about 25-30 people in line ahead of me to check out! It was very cool to see to so many people into their plants.
While we've tended to buy mostly herb and veggie starts from Hot Plants in the past, they also have starter natives such as coreopsis and rudbeckia. Check their website or Instagram posts for the latest inventory available. You can also arrange for delivery!
Their website has some old information on it so it's a little unclear, but I believe you just visit the nursery by appointment. I've had some customers mention they get their natives here as well. Their Instagram seems to be more up to date, and as of this writing they've posted that they'll be having a sale on 5/24 from 10-3 at their location 2710 Touro.
Buy-nothing or other local gardening groups on Facebook, such as "How NOLA Grows Dat".
People often share plants they're giving away, where to get starters and seeds, requests to trade or for other plants they're seeking, as well as advice on planting / growing and even pest advice. Lots of great region-specific info in there!
The plants I chose for my garden include:
-Coral honeysuckle (my favorite, top choice)
-Blanket flower (second favorite)
-Itea / Virginia Sweetspire
-Stokes Aster
-Another aster that will grow big but I forgot the name, lol
-Coreopsis
-Coneflowers
-Joe Pye Weed
-Dayflowers
-Penstemon
-Boneset
-Mountain Mint
-Gaura/ Bee Blossom
-Winecups
-Frog fruit
-Eliot's love grass
-Lawn sedge
- and probably some other things I'm forgetting.
I'll be making little name tags for each plant at some point, but if you ever want to know which ones they are, just ask!
And that's how I did it!
The only thing remaining is to add some dates to my calendar to remind me to fertilize the plants with organic plant food so they keep growing nice and big. And monitor for pests. So far I only had a few aphids on one plant that I was able to get rid of pretty easily.
If you'd like to follow along and watch how this little garden grows, check out the Instagram, Threads, or Bluesky account I made for it called @onetinyyardnola
It's not like I need more social media accounts in my life, buuuut I feel like I DO need a place to post cute pictures of anoles and bees for no reason! ☺️ 🐝