Hello all,

I have frequented the GardenWeb forums for years but forums related to the indoors not the outdoors. We bought a weekend lake place ten years ago and since then my 'grounds' at home have been sorely neglected. We have however restored our shoreline at the other place with native plants - many have been prairie plants because they do well on the steep, dry slope going down to the lake. After about 4-5 years it is really looking good! It has been such a great project I decided it was time I do something to my 'yard' at home. We have a wooded lot except for our backyard which was cleared for the septic system. The backyard was grass but it never did well in the sandy, moley soil so we decided to scrap the yard entirely and replace with native plants. It is sunny and hot part of the day so not conducive to the woodland plants we have elsewhere on the lot. It's not sunny enough for real prairie plants however so we used a native savanna mix - some grasses and some forbs. I just finished seeding today and I'm so excited I had to share it with someone who appreciates native plants! Here's a link to before and after slideshow. I refer to it as a savanna restoration though I know it's really not - it's inserting a little savanna in part of the woodland that was cleared.

Here is a link that might be useful: