A pollinator bed for the southwest corner
Right now it's just an empty corner of the backyard — full sun, already fenced, doing nothing.
The plan is a small native flower bed that pulls in pollinators and keeps color coming from spring through fall.
The neighborhood runs neat and traditional — clipped boxwoods, barberry, tidy shrubs. So this bed is built to fit right in: a crisp edge and mulch between the plants, just swapping the evergreen shrubs for waves of native color.
- Loosen the clay so roots and water can move — but skip the compost. These natives want lean-to-average soil; rich soil just makes them floppy.
- Butterfly weed gets a sharp-drained pocket; swamp milkweed takes the damp low spot — monarch hosts in both.
- Plant in drifts and keep a crisp mulched edge — clean and intentional, not wild.
- Leave stems and seedheads through winter for the birds; cut back in early spring.
Planting Plan
A to-scale plan of the quarter-circle bed (~113 sq ft). Each circle is one plant at its on-center spacing (~19", even), tiered from tall plants against the fence down to low edgers at the lawn edge. 45 plants total.
Plant Palette
All native to Eastern PA, chosen for pollinator value and overlapping bloom. Arranged by height, from the tall corner anchors to the low front edge.
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Spring · Summer · Fall
How the bed fills in and blooms across the seasons — each render shows only what's actually in flower at that point, with the plant list right below it.
Fresh color as the bed wakes up — pinks, yellows, blue, and white.
- Eastern Red Columbine red & yellow, earliest
- Moss Phlox low pink-lavender carpet
- Golden Alexanders yellow umbels
- Wild Geranium pink to lilac
- Blue Wild Indigo blue spikes, late spring
- Foxglove Beardtongue white, late spring
Coneflower, bee balm, milkweeds and the asters are up as green growth — not yet flowering.
Peak bloom and prime monarch season — purples, pink, and a pop of orange.
- Butterfly Weed orange · monarch host
- Swamp Milkweed pink · monarch host
- Wild Bergamot lavender pom-poms
- Purple Coneflower pink-purple daisies
- Dense Blazing Star purple spikes
- Garden Phlox 'Jeana' pink panicles
- Mountain Mint silvery · #1 pollinator
The spring plants and the fall asters & goldenrod are full, leafy foliage now.
Purple, blue, and gold, carrying color right to frost.
- New England Aster purple, ~4 ft
- Smooth Blue Aster soft blue, ~3 ft
- Aromatic Aster low purple-blue mounds
- Showy Goldenrod bright yellow plumes
- Black-eyed Susan gold, dark centers
Coneflower, bee balm and milkweeds stand as seedheads for the birds; the spring plants have died back.