When: Sunday, June 23, 2024, 4 – 6 PM CDT
Where: Private home in a downtown Franklin neighborhood
Register: Signup.com
We will tour the native gardens at John and Donna Brevard’s home in downtown Franklin, TN.
John was on facilities board of his church when several acres of native plants were installed. That’s when he first discovered the benefits of using native plants for sustainability.
After seeing the success of the church plantings, John and Donna bought a 50-acre farm and spent 7 years converting it to native warm season grasses and pollinator-friendly forbs. Then in 2020, they began the design process to reduce their Franklin home’s lawn by installing native plant gardens in place of lawn. In September 2021 they installed 600 plugs of various native grasses, forbs, and shrubs. The first two years required a lot of watering and hand-pulling of weeds, but by the third year the plants had knitted together just enough to help suppress the weeds. As the plants got larger and better established, their supplemental water needs also diminished.
They now have over 60 native plant species including: several native grasses and sedges, butterfly weed, several asters, phlox, various coneflowers, columbine, cardinal flower, bee balm, arrowwood viburnum, beautyberry, and more.
John currently serves on the Franklin Sustainability Commission and on the board of Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary.
