My name is Jeremy Wells and I've been living in Takoma Park, MD, since 2019, in a house that my wife and I bought in 2017. (We spent the first two years rehabbing our house before we moved in.) Since the purchase, I've been in the process of converting the yard into its current state where 99% of the species are native (see the species page on this site).

In the spring of 2022, I left my full-time job as a university professor for a better work-life balance. I now work part-time and greatly enjoy being able to spend more time with my wife and my daughters. I also have more time to enjoy the native garden that I have created in my yard.

This site documents how and why I have undertaken this native plant journey. One thing that has served me well is my passion for research, which comes from my academic background (I have a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning).

I'm always happy to share my insight with others who have similar ambitions. If you live in the Washington, DC area, I'm also open to share my expertise, via a visit to your yard or to my garden, as well.  Please contact me for more details.

How

My overall approach to gardening is to minimize soil disturbance, retain existing native species, and to not use pesticides or herbicides (if at all possible). In selecting plants, I greatly emphasize native plants—especially species that are "keystone" plants (see my species page for more details). My primary goal is to promote biodiversity. And, to support this biodiversity, I prioritize the removal of invasive species. 

An exception to these principles, during the work on my yard, has been the necessity of using glyphosate to eradicate bamboo. I've never had to use pesticides because I've never had any significant issues with insects—where they appear, the issue eventually self corrects because of the appearance of insect predators. In fact, native plants are supposed to be food for insects and animals—especially keystone species—which is why I view this kind of damage to plants as a good thing. It is the non-natives, and especially invasives, which never show damage because nothing can eat them—a very bad thing for biological diversity.

My yard, as with many Takoma Park yards, is mostly part-shade to full-shade, with a few dry areas, which makes growing anything a bit of a challenge. What I've learned, however, is that weeds and invasive species will also grow more slowly in these areas, which helps in terms of control. The soil is a mix of silt to clay loam. Where silt loam dominates (most of the yard), the drainage is quite good. Below the topsoil (O horizon), the soil becomes strongly acid and is very low in calcium and magnesium. 

I began the conversion of the 5,100 square feet of my property, which would support plant growth (i.e., the area with soil), to native plants shortly after the house purchase in the fall of 2017. I planted a few native trees (e.g., a redbud [Cercis canadensis]) and a few Phlox divaricata. Over 2018, I continued to plant a few native trees and shrubs, but it wasn't until the winter of 2019 that I committed to an intense and nearly complete conversion of the entire yard to native species. 

The first thing I did, in realizing that I could not sow seeds in place over the winter because the planting bed was not ready, was to cold stratify my seeds in the refrigerator. I then started pulling, in the front yard, by hand, what seemed like infinite numbers of wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei), periwinkle (Vinca minor), porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata), English ivy (Hedera helix), Amur honeysuckle  (Lonicera maackii), tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima—luckily only saplings), and forsythia (Forsythia spp.). I repeated this process four times over a period of four weeks and also hired some help, which I greatly needed. In the end, I was able to remove nearly all of the non-natives in this way. I then layed down thick layers of paper (non-rosin builder's paper) and placed 2-3 inches of compost on top. In early spring, over the compost, I then direct sowed the previously cold stratified seeds. 

Through the spring and into the early summer, many of the seeds germinated very well, especially plants from families represented by the Apiaceae (carrot), Apocynaceae (dogbane/milkweed), Asteraceae (aster), Campanulaceae (bell flower), Hypericaceae (St. John's wort), Lamiaceae (mint), Malvaceae (mallow), Plantaginaceae (plantain), and Poaceae (grass). But, many seeds showed no sign of germination, especially the woodland ephemerals. I would later learn that these plants are notoriously difficult to germinate and their seeds are often dead by the time you purchase them. For decent germination, these plants need to be grown from fresh seeds (never stored) that are immediately planted so as to assure they never dry out. For these kinds of plants, I ended up purchasing plugs or bare roots and planting these, instead. 

In January 2019, I dug up and moved all of the incredibly thick layer (12 inches+ !!) of bark mulch mandated by the City arborist to protect tree roots, during construction, into the corner of the backyard, using it to level the site a bit. Part of the ground that was exposed, in this process, was the southeast facing side of the house. On this bare ground, I directly sowed a wide variety of native plant seeds. Over the spring and summer of 2019, most germinated and grew quite well. In particular, Rudbeckia hirta and R. triloba were very aggressive growers along with New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).

The backyard had the same invasive species as the front yard, plus Liriope and a few other, less aggressive non-natives. In the spring of 2019, in preparation for converting the entirety of the backyard into native plants, I hand pulled and dug the Ornithogalum umbellatum and Allium vineale and dug up the many non-native vines, shrubs, and small trees that were present. In the summer, I sprayed the remaining low-growing non-natives with glyphosate and waited for the plants to start to die down. I then placed thick layers of cardboard over the entire backyard to smother the non-native plants. In March of 2020, I placed 2-3 inches of compost over the cardboard and planted native seeds that needed short cold-stratification times and annuals. As spring arrived, I started planting plugs and bare root plants. When late fall arrived, I direct sowed native seeds that required longer cold stratification times.

The last major intervention in my yard was in January 2021, when I removed the invasive arrow bamboo growing in the backyard. This bamboo was never planted in my yard; instead, it crept under the fence from my neighbor, and by the time I got to it, had consumed about 400 square feet of area. I removed the bamboo, permanently, by cutting it all to the ground and digging a 3-foot deep trench at the perimeter of my property (at the fence line), which severed all of the rhizomes that connected to the neighbor's bamboo, and then installing a root barrier. I then waited for the bamboo, in my yard, to start sending up shoots in the spring; when this happened, I cut the shoot to the ground, carved out a concave section in the stem, and then filled the hollow with concentrated glyphosate. This was highly effective and by summer, all of the bamboo that was sending up shoots had died back. For the next two growing seasons, there was an occasional, greatly dwarfed shoot that would appear that I then cut back. None have happened this growing season (2023).

Through the fall of 2020 to the present, I still direct sow many native plant seeds, although the volume has diminished substantially in recent years due to existing natives filling in the planting area. I also continued to plant plugs and bare roots of species that did not grow well from direct sown seed.

Maintenance consists of weeding and pruning. The same invasives that came with my yard continue to be deposited when the birds poop, so it is a never ending job to pull porcelain vine. On occasion a wintercreeper vine or seedling will pop up, but it's easy to remove. It is nice, however, that I never need to mow a lawn. And, when the leaves drop in the fall, I let most of them stay where they are to nourish the soil.

Why

As I've mentioned in other areas on this site, the primary goal of my effort to convert my yard to 99% natives is to help foster biodiversity. If more people, like me, were to make efforts, in this direction, with their yards, habitat fragmentation would decrease and we might be able to help reverse the declines in insects, birds, and amphibians that have been linked to naive human interventions in the environment.

I created this site to show people, who have the ability to control and change what is planted in their yards, what is possible. An emphasis on planting native seeds also has the following ecological and cost benefits:

• Lower carbon footprint: shipping seeds, versus plants, is far cheaper and uses less fuel.

• More genetic diversity: planting from seed vastly increases genetic diversity over buying plants that may have been grown from genetically similar cuttings or divisions. You're also more assured that, with seeds, you're growing something closer to the wild strain versus a cultivar.

• Lower cost: seeds are far less costly than buying plants.

This site is also my way to normalize the appearance of a native plant yard. The perception of aesthetically pleasing yards needs to be fundamentally changed. A yard that consists of neat and orderly assemblages of lawns and aesthetically placed exotic plant objects that emphasize hard over soft borders, and seas of mulch interspaced with lonely plantings is not normal in the history of the planet. We should, instead, emulate the kinds of plantings seen in environments with far less human intervention.