Sandy Soil Garden Kit

A garden kit is a collection of plants pre-selected by our nursery to meet a certain purpose. Garden kits are designed to make gardening goals easy. They can be used as a quick way to start gardening native without having to research all 100+ plants in our nursery to decide what might be right for you. They come pre-arranged in the tray so you can plant them just as they are for an instant garden design, with tall plants in the back and short, showy plants in the front. Or, since each plant is labeled with plant name and height, you can arrange them to suit your space.
 
The Sandy Soil garden kit contains hardy plants that will love the coarse soils found in much of the central UP and elsewhere.  The plants selected will thrive in sunny, medium to dry sandy loam.  Although some of these plants are capable of toughing it out in dunes or nearly straight sand, most will do better with a bit of loam.  But folks from Illinois take heart - the soils in the UP are not as poor as they appear to your prairie-loam trained eye. These plants do no require soil amendment and will provide flowers, food, and habitat for a variety of beneficial UP insects, pollinators, and birds.  
 
A typical kit will contain approximately the mix of plants below, but one way we keep the per-plant costs low on garden kits is by reserving the right to substitute plants based on our current inventory. Your kit will contain about 3 of each species, and may differ from the list below, however, the plants included will thrive in sandy soils. If you need specific plants for your garden goals, consider supplementing your garden kit with quarts.
 
Northern or Rough Blazingstar
Showy or Hairy Goldenrod
Sky Blue Aster
Little Bluestem, Prairie Dropseed, or Side Oats Grama Grass
Western Sunflower
Showy Coneflower
Spiderwort
Butterfly Milkweed
Hoary Vervain
Lanceleaf Coreopsis
Prairie Phlox
Pale Agoseris
Spotted Bee Balm
 
If substitutions are necessary, they may include Canada Milk Vetch, Black-eyed Susan, Shrubby Cinquefoil, Rough Blazing Star, Whorled Milkweed, Hairy Beardtongue, Bergamot, Harebell, Stiff Goldenrod, Gray Goldenrod, Early Goldenrod, Hairy Goldenrod, Indian Grass, Side Oats Grama, June Grass, Poverty Oat Grass, Pearly Everlasting, Wild Strawberry, Rattlesnake Master, Round-headed Bush Clover, Grey Coneflower, New Jersey Tea, Evening Primrose, or Rock Harlequin. If you are looking for plants that spread, Yarrow and Common Milkweed will fit the bill.  All of these plants can handle sandy soil and are recommended if you wish to expand your garden.
 
This economical kit includes 38 plugs that fill 38 square feet at 1-foot spacing - a 4'x9.5' bed; or up to 86 square feet at 1.5 sq. ft. spacing - a 6'x14' bed. If you need to buy two kits to fill your space, check out our "buy one, get the second identical kit for 25% off" deal.
 
Each kit comes with a planting guide. The plants are individually tagged for identification and all tags include height so you can alter the layout to suit your space.  
 
Note that the picture represents an example of our garden kits. Plant species and size may vary depending on inventory and time of year.