The North Carolina Native Plant Society visited my Raleigh garden four and a half years after I’d begun transforming the backyard into a wildlife sanctuary. It’s now full of native plants, water, and shelter for pollinators, birds, frogs, and more. The photos below show the garden as it was that day in mid-July 2024. See the front garden in Part 1 of this tour. Click on any photo for a larger image.
Entrance to Back Garden
A raised walkway leads visitors past the screened porch to the patio. Note the in-ground gutter between the walkway and the porch. It captures rain water from the roof and guides it into a dry stream and on to a rain garden.
Bog Garden
The bog garden is full of sand and peat. It stays damp because it is connected to the stream.
Water Feature
Water flows from a basin on the patio that serves as a biological filter, down a trough that the birds love to play in, to a stream, a big pond, and then a smaller pond. A pump brings the water back up to the basin. When it rains, water cascades off the roof into the basin. When the system gets too full, water overflows into the rain garden. Frogs, lizards, and dragonflies make themselves at home here.
Dry Stream Bank
Two dry streams join just before the bridge to the viewing platform. They then lead any storm runoff into the rain garden. This part of the garden is most colorful in the spring and fall. Now, the focus is on grasses, seedpods, and graceful vines.
Rain Garden
The rain garden blooms all summer, anchored by a large Buttonbush.
Hellebore Hill
This shady corner now has native hedge plants for privacy. The Suburban Buddha is made from scraps leftover from making the boardwalks. Not shown is a hill thick with hellebores (Lenten roses, not native alas) and rhododendrons.
Paw-Paw Patch
In the lowest part of the garden, we saw three Paw Paws that are now about four feet high, native azaleas, and a thicket of Carolina Allspice and Highbush Blueberries. Not shown: Elderberries, Serviceberries, and American Beautyberry.
Rain-Garden Slope
A main project for the past year has been removing invasive plants from the hill below the rain garden and planting natives there instead. Some came from the NCNPS Reid Chapter plant swap this spring. At the top of the slope, a huge Dogwood and a rapidly growing Coastal Redwood provide shade below.
Pond Hill
This area has some of my favorite sun-loving plants, including Black-Eyed Susans, St. John’s Wort, Fireworks Goldenrod, and Frogfruit.
