Mountain Native Landscape Design

10/09/2026

66% of plants on state invasive species lists are still sold by . This is not a green industry but a profit driven cartel that cares only about profits and not a s**t about healthy ecosystems. Your tax dollars then go to removing these bullies that outcompete native vegetation essential to biodiversity so you pay twice for these plants. Take a look at the list and refuse to buy them. Better yet, visit your local native plant nursery and watch wildlife return to your yard.

The $12 flowering tree looks like a steal. The red-leaf shrub is marked down to clear. The flat of glossy groundcover costs less than lunch.

09/28/2026

09/14/2026

Lights out!

Birds are drawn to lights, and more than a billion die each year after crashing into buildings, experts said.

08/27/2026

Steep slopes can make gardening more complicated, but they can also create opportunities for thoughtful native plant design.

Join Asheville Botanical Garden for Gardening on Steep Slopes with Drew Lathin. This indoor class will explore the challenges of landscaping on slopes, including soil moisture, soil composition, sunlight, plant selection, establishment, and long-term vegetation management.

Drew will share practical ways to think through slope conditions and improve your odds of success when landscaping with native plants.

Sunday, September 6
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
ABG Visitor Center
Indoor class

$25 for non-members
ABG members receive 25% off with code CLASSES25

Learn more and register at ashevillebotanicalgarden.org/classes/

07/25/2026

Every parking lot should have a filled with for habitat and better control of instead of a raised bed with useless turf. Here is one I installed at the in Michigan a number of years ago. See the curb cut middle far right? Water from the parking lot goes into the three foot deep depression and is infiltrated into the ground rather than into a storm sewer which then goes to the river carrying parking lot pollutants.

07/23/2026

There is a funny backstory to this picture. When I was in Ann Arbor, I killed the turf grass in this lawn extension and seeded it with short . Evidently a neighbor who had nothing better to do contacted the city ordinance department to complain. Ann Arbor ordinance requires turf grass to be no longer than 8" tall. The client and I met with the ordinance control officer on site. And here is where it gets amusing. Like a good lawyer which I am not, you don't ask questions that you don't know the answer to. I asked him to confirm that the ordinance requires *turf grass* to be shorter than 8". He confirmed this. I then said that this is not *turf grass*. He thought about this for about 5 seconds and then said, "Have a nice day," and left.

07/20/2026

This was my house in Ann Arbor in 2010 with the city's first taking water off the street not associated with a street repaving. The city drilled the hole in the curb and I chipped the pavement so water would more easily flow into the rain garden. Whenever it rained that year city staff would descend on my rain garden to see how it was working. In the upper right you can see another rain garden taking water off the roof with the blooming.

07/19/2026

After 42 years, now the . Help it get off the ground.