Building a Garden — Going native

BY LUCY PROBERT

Landscape designer Daune Peckham has been working in coastal New England for more than three decades, and has developed a style that integrates landscape design “with nature in mind.” We talked to Daune about how to get started, what she plants in her own garden and why, in her opinion, native plants make for the most beautiful gardens.

“There’s something just so pleasurable about being in a garden,” she says.

What are the first steps in starting a garden?

“The most important thing to do is look at your site. What is its exposure to wind, to sun? What type of soil do you have? If it’s in a low area is it wet?

“Little Compton tends to have clay soil with a high-water table. Can the area be fenced in?

“Deer are probably the number one challenge for gardens once they find you. They won’t come through when you’re sitting out having a cup of coffee, it will be at night when it’s dark.

“If fencing isn’t an option, you’ll have to learn to live with them by finding plants they are less likely to eat, and there are a lot of them. Check online or with a local nursery.”

Why native?

“I don’t really have a traditional cutting flower garden per se. I put in primarily native flowering plants in my garden, but if I were designing a garden just for picking flowers, I would choose a different site on the property where you can plant flowers that are pretty for cutting, but maybe don’t bloom for very long.

“For a small garden I just want to enjoy from my patio, that always looks good, I stick to primarily