Dianne -East Lyme CT 6/7/2025

On a whim, I attended a presentation offered by my employer which was about incorporating native plantings into a residential landscape. James “Jimmy” Natale, owner of Wilder Gardens in Groton, CT gave us a very-intriguing talk about the beauty and benefits of using native, flowering plants to attract pollinators while allowing for a low-to-no maintenance option of having the usual grassy lawn. My husband and I just moved into our newly-constructed home and had an outdoor blank slate with little idea of what to do with it. Our first project was to design a very-large, grass and dirt island in the middle of our circular driveway. 

 

We scheduled an onsite consultation with Jimmy on a Sunday morning. Upon arrival, his instinct was to immediately walk the perimeter of our property with us and point out all of the already-growing natural flora; it was amazing to learn how many ferns we had as well as other little flowering gems that we didn’t even notice before! His passion, excitement, and knowledge led us to hire him to install a meadow in our driveway island. 

 

A couple weeks later, Jimmy and his amazing team installed 835 (!) locally-grown plants in only two days. It was quite a fun experience to interact with them as they laid out and planted the 35+ different specimens in groupings that would fill out the space and maintain a beautiful, meadow that promises to have color and texture, annually, from early spring to late fall. As I write this review, only about a week and a half after installation, the plants have grown significantly and some are already flowering which has attracted butterflies and even hummingbirds! All we have had to do is keep them watered (to ensure that the roots become established); but after this year, since these plants are native to this region, they will need little to no maintenance.

 

I am beyond pleased with this meadow, even at its early growth, and I can’t wait to enjoy this space for years to come! A bonus to having this initial meadow is that it will act as a nursery to facilitate transplantings and seedings for other areas of the property. Meadowscaping is an amazing option to having ornamental, non-native plants and lawn-grass, and I encourage everyone to learn about this method to find out if it is right for their landscape.