Advice for sandy slope in NE, wildflowers?

[Mark W]

Hi all. We've been in our home in CT for over 20 years. When we built there was a large sandy south facing slope 150x50 ft in the back yard. We planted wildflowers years ago which looked great for the first year, but then weeds took over. We reclaimed it and planted wildflowers again during COVID. We love the wildflowers, but the weeding of such a large area on a steep sandy slope is very difficult and time consuming. Looking for some advice.

This is an example of the flowers and weeds.

I think wildflowers might be the right choice, but we're getting older and I'm not sure how much longer that I want to spend days and days weeding every year. Any advice on how to effectively try to control the weeds or maybe some alternative ideas? Are there attractive flowers/plants that with thrive in sandy sun that can battle the weeds themselves? Thanks for any help!

 

[oneeye]

You have a beautiful yard friend. It takes many yearly plantings to get wild flowers fully established. If you do what you did the first year and repeat every year for about 5 years the wild flower may take over. Most of the time the common weeds in the area will out grow plants that are not accustomed to the native environment. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I can't tell by your wording, but make sure you're planting native plants to Connecticut and not "wildflowers", which is often the wording used for a generic mix of non-native annuals and perennials. Native plants will better outcompete weeds, especially if you commit to weeding the first few years. Native plantings are more vulnerable to being taken over by weeds during the first few years but if you stay on top of it and your natives fill in densely, weeding becomes significantly easier by year 3 or 4. Its also easy if you know how to identify weed seedlings. I tend to get about 5 or 6 non-native weed species in my gardens, and learning what they look like when they're young makes it easy to pull them out before they ever have a chance to establish. You also want to make sure you're planting the right plants for the right place. If plants don't like your lighting or soil conditions, they'll simply start dying out after a year or two and that open space will be quickly taken up by weed seeds. Try to find species that really love your conditions. Potentially even some of the more aggressive native plant species could be something to look into. You wont have as much plant diversity but you'll have a more self-sustaining population of native species.

Prairie Moon Nursery's website is a good resource for learning about native plants, their native ranges, and what conditions they do best in.