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 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 not 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
Smooth Blue or Calico Aster
Little Bluestem, Prairie Dropseed, June, or Side Oats Grama Grass
Showy Coneflower
Butterfly Milkweed
Hoary Vervain
Lanceleaf Coreopsis
Spotted Bee Balm
Hairy Beardtongue
Whorled or Common Milkweed
Evening Primrose, Lupine, Wild Strawberry, Yarrow, or Wild Petunia as inventory allows
 
If substitutions are necessary, they may include Canada Milk Vetch, Black-eyed Susan, Shrubby Cinquefoil, Bergamot, Harebell, Stiff Goldenrod, Gray Goldenrod, Early Goldenrod,  Indian Grass, Poverty Oat Grass, Pearly Everlasting,  Rattlesnake Master, Round-headed Bush Clover, Grey Coneflower, New Jersey Tea, or Rock Harlequin. 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'x10' bed with an 8" border; 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.