I don’t want this much ornamental grass, what do I do? Let nature take over a patch of it? Hire a landscape designer for a minimum of 10k? Please send help.
More info: I’ve stopped using -icides and I have a robot mower at 3.5”.
I have let a patch grow wild and added a couple apple trees and wildflowers. The city code enforcers want to mow it and fine me, but I don’t plan on letting them.
I’m kinda against fences because they feel pretty anti-social and I’m already only allowed to see people if I use a car. Then again, fences seem like the only way to combat these crazy deer.
I don’t want to design it myself because I want to believe that professional landscape designers do more than just plop stuff around on a whim.
Put a fence around it and label it a local insect and wildlife habitat.
It’s low effort and you get self-righteous environmental points.
Unfortunately things are not that easy. At least in western europe, if you let a patch of land sit there for decades, it will eventually turn into a forest. While forests are nice, they are not necessarily the most biodiverse places.
Some regular destruction of plants (mowing, animals grazing, etc) is beneficial for biodiversity.
I would do this, specifically for pollinators (i.e. honeybees, hummingbirds, butterflies, bats). They co-habitate fairly well and vertebrate pollinators help keep insect pest populations under control.
A nice bonus would be to add a sizeable water feature to encourage dragonfly growth. Of course, this all depends on the geography.