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If the idea of meticulously planning and caring for a garden brings you nothing but stress, this gardening trend might bring you nothing but joy.
Chaos gardening is a laid-back (and haphazard) approach to gardening, built on the notion that you can garden without expensive tools or extensive know-how, and that embracing the unexpected and unplanned can yield beautiful and bountiful results.
If you’re looking for a reason to let go of the rules and let nature work its magic, look no further.
What Is Chaos Gardening?
It started off as a TikTok trend, but chaos gardening is becoming a more practiced method of planting. It was even featured in some displays at the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show in London.
And, it’s exactly what it sounds like: rebelling against tidy gardens and strict rules about how a garden needs to be organized. It brings to mind an unbridled, colorful countryside of tall grasses and wildflowers, but one that fits in your backyard.
Many chaos gardeners choose this method for its convenience, minimal maintenance and lower financial commitment. Starting seeds indoors takes some planning and know-how, and buying starts at the garden center can get pretty pricey pretty fast. Instead, the trend entails basically throwing seeds around (with some mindfulness for location) and seeing what takes. It’s not only for flowers, but also vegetables, groundcover and more.
Chaos gardening also follows the research showing that plants growing in isolation are more susceptible to diseases and pests, and plant diversity can be very beneficial to soil health.
How Is Chaos Gardening Beneficial for the Environment?
Many deliberately-planted garden plants do provide pollen and nectar to pollinators, but a chaotic garden without strict plots or plant varieties and greater variety might attract more pollinating birds and insects to your yard. Inviting these creatures into your space helps support a biodiverse local ecosystem, where many plants thrive and provide resources for mammals, insects and birds. Especially if the plants and seed heads are left in the garden after the growing season ends, they can become a habitat for overwintering species like ground nesting bees and beetles.
Including native plants in your chaos garden is especially beneficial. Native wildflowers, grasses, perennials and groundcover plants are already suited for the conditions of your home environment, meaning they’ll need fewer inputs – often including water – to thrive.
While it brings many environmental benefits, traditional gardening isn’t without its harms: plants from the nursery like vegetable starts or small annuals often come in unrecyclable plastic containers – which can amass by the hundreds for a large garden project. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides meant to keep out unwanted critters and weeds can have wide-ranging impacts on the ecosystem, including keeping the good bugs out. And a lack of plant diversity in gardens doesn’t support a biodiverse yard. Chaos gardening might be able to alleviate some of these drawbacks to strictly traditional gardening, while still bringing beauty and joy to your space.
How to Get Started
Before going out and throwing seeds around, consider a few important basics to ensure that your garden thrives all season.
Location and Sunlight
Yes, it’s all about letting go of the rules – but plants do need light to survive. Think about the spots in your yard that have the best sunlight when choosing which areas you want to seed; many flowers and vegetables need at least four to six hours of direct sunlight to thrive. Different plants have different light requirements, so you can choose certain seeds for certain spots accordingly. Some plants, like leafy green vegetables or begonias, do just fine in low light.
Soil
You can just roll with the soil you have and see what takes, but for better results, you’ll want to start with healthy soil. Plants do best in well-draining soil that’s rich in nutrients. Seedlings especially need a growing medium that drains well and isn’t so thick that their fledgling roots can’t break through. Do some soil amendment before throwing seeds – especially if your soil is very thick or full of clay – with some good garden soil that’s aerated with perlite or other amendments, and some compost or other organic fertilizer. Mix it into the top few inches of soil in the garden, using a rake or shovel to turn it over and loosen the dirt.
Choosing Plants
If you’ve already got a bunch of half-empty seed packets, those will do just fine, or you can add to them with newly purchased seeds. Native plants are always a great choice for a healthy garden.
Choosing seeds all depends on what kind of plants you want: vegetables, annual flowers or perennials that come back every year. Consider the kind of light you have, and what hardiness zone the seeds are suited for. Make sure the plants aren’t considered invasive in your area either, or won’t totally take over if left unchecked (like mint)
Some chaos gardeners also consider companion planting: plants that support one another through their proximity, either through pest deterrence or other means, like tomatoes and basil. This doesn’t mean sowing deliberately next to each other, but maybe you toss companion seeds in the same area
House & Garden has a great list of plants to choose based on your desired chaos-garden aesthetic.
Seeding
There are two major ways to go about seeding a chaos garden:
- Choose sites deliberately for certain seeds or mixtures of seeds, then scatter them accordingly. You might do this based on light requirements, mixing up seeds that need more light and those that need less; you might prioritize watering requirements, mixing those that want to be watered every day, and those that only want it every few days; or, you might decide that color schemes or plant height are most important, and create mixtures accordingly.
- Mix all of your seeds together – thinning out with some sand to make tossing the seeds around a bit easier – and scatter them all over the garden. This is best if you aren’t growing specific vegetable plants, or are doing lots of low-lying leafy greens that look beautiful as well as taste delicious.
Whatever you choose, you can leave the seeds on the surface of the soil, or use a rake to turn them under, which will prevent critters from absconding with them right away.
Maintenance
Especially if vegetables are in the mix, remember to water frequently. You’ll likely need to thin out seedlings as they come in. Plants will compete for resources, so if a dozen tomato plants sprout up within a couple of feet of each other, you might want to pull some out so that those remaining have the best chance at surviving and thriving.
If you’re planting perennials, the following year will be even easier, since whatever you plant will overwinter and come back in the spring. Some plants also reseed themselves (like annual grasses, field poppies, etc.), setting you up for next year.
Things to Keep in Mind
Not Everything Is Going to Work
Especially if you’re using up old seed packets (which very well might still hold viable seeds!), not everything will necessarily take. Maybe you never see a single kale plant, but the sunflowers go wild. Maybe the marigolds are colorful and abundant, but the daisies don’t make it. In the end, it’s all about letting go and watching nature work its magic.
Weeds Still Exist
Weeds will still pop up around the garden: weeds as in the undesired plants that are crowding out the ones you do want around. The pesky plants can wrap around roots, stems or block sunlight and take up the nutrients and water that other plants depend on. Many weeds like dandelions also self-seed, so they’re sure to come back next year and wreak more havoc if not dealt with quickly. Plan to spend some time weeding throughout the season, especially in the early summer to keep things from spreading.
Local Ordinances or Regulations
Before fully letting wildness reign in your yard, check that doing so isn’t breaking any arcane laws or neighborhood rules. HOAs sometimes have rules about what kind, quantity or size of plants are allowed in visible garden plots or front yards. If so, you can still grow a lovely chaos garden, but you might need to keep it contained to certain areas of the yard or limited to certain kinds of plants.
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