2025 November 21 Soft Landing Maintenance Plan

As I dig deeper into my Ecological Landscaping career, I understand the make or break value of proper maintenance of native plantings. I have seen places where thousands of dollars were spent on a native planted project, then a traditional landscaping contractor sprayed herbicide over all of the "weeds". I have seen gorgeous shrubbery and groundcovers simply mowed down to nothing. Unfortunately, I even know of a time when custodial staff found a garden to be too much maintenance and deliberately killed it. 

The Soft Landing is asleep under the snow. Hopefully the layer of leaves are protecting the new plantings and overwintering insects!

These horror stories show that as we move farther into landscaping with native plants, education and communication are critical. Native plants behave differently than the typical exotic species landscapers are used to. They spread beyond boundaries, they compete with each other, they change from year to year, they get eaten by wildlife and all of this is expected and planned for, if you know what you're doing. 

My guidelines are just a start for this planting. As the plants sleep the first year, creep the second year and then LEAP the third year, the soft landing will look wildly different. When the Black Locusts and Spicebush mature, the dappled shade will turn into full shade. I can speculate, but I don't know for sure how the soft landing will look in 5 or 10 years. Maybe the birds will bring in another fun native species. Maybe a species will fail and leave room for invasives. Our world changes and we just need some guidelines to follow. I did my best. Take a look and send me a comment if I missed anything! See my previous three posts for the planting plan, substitutions, and actual soft landing planting outcome!