Meadowscaping Your Yard: 10 Inspiring Landscaping Ideas

Ready to dig in with Meadowscaping – but not sure where to begin? Check out these great landscaping ideas for your yard! Meadowscaping is well suited to a wide range of outdoor spaces - from front yards, to back yards, to sidewalk gardens. These ideals will inspire you to make your yard better than ever! 

See More:

• Meadowscaping With Wildflowers 
• Meadowscaping With Perennials & Flower Bulbs
• Meadowscaping With Naturalizing Flower Bulbs
• Meadowscaping With A Flowering Lawn

Wildflowers are likely what first comes to mind when you hear the term “meadowscaping.” As the wildflower experts, we have some great ideas for how you can grow wildflowers in your yard!

Planting Tips:

• Preparation is the key to success - we always recommend removing existing grass and weeds before planting wildflowers. When choosing your wildflowers, consider their lifecycle. 
• Annual wildflowers, like Zinnias, Sunflowers, and Cosmos, are great for beginners and instant gratification;  they have a one year lifecycle, so they’ll bloom all summer long until frost; we typically recommend planting new annual wildflowers each year for best results. 
• Perennial wildflowers, like Coneflowers, Lupine, Milkweed, and others, live for many years, so they only have to be planted once, but they require more patience. Perennial wildflowers typically take around 2 years to establish before they bloom.

Mike “The Seed Man” Lizotte grows a colorful mini meadow in his front yard each summer! The wildflowers help add color to his yard, and the walking path around the mini meadow gives a tidy, intentional appearance - and it invites visitors to see the flowers up close. 

The natural beauty of wildflowers makes them an easy-to-grow enhancement for your yard. Plant them as a border at the edge of your yard. They look beautiful as a border along sidewalks, walkways, and fences, too!

It’s no secret - we love a wildflower lawn! Imagine looking out your window in the summer to see your outdoor space filled with beautiful blooms, with bees and butterflies buzzing and fluttering through your yard. Plus - you won’t have to mow all summer! 

Add curb appeal to your home by replacing your front yard with wildflowers, or create a peaceful retreat in your backyard by replacing your lawn with wildflowers.

If you love the natural beauty of a meadow, but you love garden design, meadowscaping with perennials and flower bulbs is a great option. This method allows you to place each plant with intention. The benefit of this style is that you can incorporate ornamental grasses, and even shrubs, for year-round visual interest. For a more formal or traditional landscape style for your yard, meadowscaping with perennial plants and flower bubs is the way to go. 

Planting Tips:

• Perennial flowers, ornamental grasses, and fall-planted flower bulbs like Alliums and Daffodils can be planted once, and they will return year after year. Perennial plants that naturalize, or spread over time, make a great choice for meadowscaping. 
• Dahlias are spring-planted flower bulbs that add major flower power to any planting. They’ll grow to their full size and provide abundant blooms in the first season. They won’t survive the winter in most climates, so most gardeners treat them as annuals, or they can be stored over winter and re-planted each season. Learn more about How To Grow Dahlias.

This combination features a range of plants for year-round beauty and layers of textures. This garden’s plant variety is great for attracting birds and butterflies to your yard.

Get this look with this plant list:

• Calamintha,
• 'Creme de Cassis' Dahlias,
• 'Bacardi' Decorative Dahlias,
• 'October Sky' Decorative Dahlias,
• 'Black Knight' Butterfly Bush,
• Fountain Grass,
• Miscanthus Grass

Remember to include native plants, like Coneflowers, Bee Balm, and Ornamental Grasses to provide habitat to support birds and pollinators. They are resilient and highly adaptable, well-suited to a wide range of growing conditions, so they're easy to grow and low maintenance as well as beautiful!

Get this look with this plant list:

• Giant Black Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia),
• Bee Balm (Monarda),
• 'Northwind' Switchgrass
• Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea),
• Hardy Geraniums,
• Calamintha

Planting a meadowscape with perennials makes it easy to create a harmonious color palette of your favorite plants. Once established perennials return year after year, so they’re great for low-maintenance gardening. 

Get this look with this plant list:

• 'Hummelo' Betony
• Russian Sage (Perovskia)
• Pearly Everlasting
• Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium)
• Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea)
• Butterfly Weed (Asclepias)

After a long, dreary winter, there’s nothing better than bright and cheerful spring blooms. So, why not fill your yard with flowers? The best bulbs for meadowscaping are those that will naturalize, or spread over time, such as Daffodils, Crocus, Squill, or naturalizing Wildflower Tulips.

These flower bulbs aren’t just for garden beds, either. You can plant early-spring bloomers, like Crocus, Squill, and early-blooming Daffodils right into your lawn. These flowers will be up and blooming before your lawn needs mowing, so you can enjoy a flower-filled spring. By summer, the spring-blooming bulbs will have passed. Then, if you planted in your lawn, you can mow it if needed. 

You can also plant naturalizing bulbs in your wildflower meadow. Spring-blooming bulbs will be in bloom well before your wildflowers. Once the spring bulbs have passed, your summer-blooming wildflowers will take over the show!

• Fall-planted flower bulbs are so easy to grow. Planting is easy - all you have to do is dig in the fall, drop in your bulbs, and wait for spring blooms.

Stinzenplanten is a lawn infused with an early spring succession of naturalizing flower bulbs. Plant Crocus, Naturalizing Daffodils, Squill or Wildflower Tulips to achieve this exquisite look just as the seasons change.

Naturalizing Daffodils are deer and rabbit resistant, so these are ideal bulbs for filling your yard with spring flowers.

If you’ve planted a wildflower meadow or a meadowscape garden, you may have areas where you want to run, walk, and play in your yard. In this case, you’re probably looking for a little bit of lawn. Low-growing, soft, and durable groundcovers can be an integral part of your meadowscape landscape design.

We offer a wide range of solutions, including clover, microclover, and exclusive flowering lawn mixes that pair low-growing wildflowers with grasses. Grow a great yard where you can relax and let loose.

• Clover and Microclover can be "overseeded," or planted into an existing lawn. However, for a complete yard makeover, we recommend removing existing growth before planting a new lawn or lawn alternative.

Clover is soft, durable, and keeps your lawn looking green and lush. Let the flowers bloom for a pollinator-friendly lawn. Or, keep the flowers at bay with occasional mowing for a more traditional look.

Our No Mow Flowering Lawn Seed Mix is the perfect solution for a charming pollinator-friendly lawn. Low-growing fescues and Clover create a cushiony feel, and English Daisies add charm. Put away your lawnmower – pack up a picnic and enjoy this beautiful, low-maintenance lawn.

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Visit Our Meadowscaping Learning Center