Pollinator garden design tool

Drifts, not dots

One coneflower is decor; twenty in a drift is habitat. Pollinators forage efficiently when a single species masses at least 3 by 3 feet, so design in swaths of five to nine plants and repeat the swaths. This is where seeing the plan painted at real scale beats a plant list: dots on graph paper always turn out too small.

Succession is the design

The garden needs something opening every week: creeping phlox and serviceberry for spring, coneflower and black eyed susan through high summer, russian sage carrying into fall. Leave the seed heads standing all winter, they are the bird feeder and next year is already paid for.

Skip the mulch volcano, plant the ground

Bare mulch between perennials is wasted habitat. Green groundcovers knit the floor, hold moisture, and host the ground-nesting bees that do most of the actual pollination. Densely planted beds also shade out most weeding after year two.

Before and after, honestly

Every Painted Acre plan starts from a photo of a real yard and ends with the same view, years grown. No invented dream yard, no stock photos.

The drifts, painted

A bloom relay from April to frost, every species painted at every age. Enter your ZIP and the palette narrows to what survives your winters, so every drift you sketch comes back next spring.

Purple Coneflower

Echinacea purpurea

The backbone drift: months of bloom, goldfinch seed heads after.

Zones 3–93 ft

Black-Eyed Susan

Rudbeckia fulgida

High-summer gold that bees mob; tough as pavement.

Zones 3–92.5 ft

Russian Sage

Salvia yangii

A silver-blue cloud from July to frost, carries the late season.

Zones 4–94 ft

Lavender

Lavandula angustifolia

Bee magnet at the path edge, fragrance where you brush past.

Zones 5–92.5 ft

Creeping Phlox

Phlox subulata

The earliest food of the season, spilling color in April.

Zones 3–90.5 ft

Birdbath

Water is half of habitat; shallow with a landing rim.

3 ft

Questions people ask

What this is, and is not: Painted Acre produces an illustrative watercolor design plan: placement, plant choices, and an honest picture of growth over time. It is not an architectural, engineering, or construction document. For anything that involves excavation, water, structures, or grading, bring the plan to a qualified contractor or landscape professional and verify measurements, utilities, and local codes first.