About
Our story
Welcome to Southern Meadows!
I am so happy you are here and hope you enjoy a little taste
of our garden and homestead in the Piedmont region of South Carolina. We recently
moved and are now nestled on 55 acres of mixed oak forest at the foothills of
the Blue Ridge mountains. Much of our land is forested with rushing streams and
a plethora of native plants.
To pursue our food growing interest, we created some
open space for an orchard and growing vegetables. Additionally, our local power company- via
eminent domain-cleared 2 acres of our land to run powerlines. But when life
gives you lemons you make lemonade, right? So, we will be using this space to
create prairie habitat for wildlife (no spraying allowed!).
My journey with native plants began in 2007 when I transformed
our sterile builder style landscape in Northeast Georgia into a rich habitat
for wildlife in a HOA neighborhood. Our garden was a Gold Medal Certified
Native Plant Habitat, Monarch Waystation, certified pollinator, and wildlife
habitat. In 2019, we received the Pollinator Habitat Award from Monarchs Across
Georgia.
My passion for prairie ecology grew from my interest in
supporting pollinators and implementing sustainable gardening practices. I am
honored to teach an annual class (since 2018) on establishing prairies as part of the
Native Plant Certificate Program at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens.
On the blog I write about or trials, tribulations but mostly triumphs growing plants, attracting pollinators, birds, amphibians, snakes, and other beneficial insects and lots of other homesteading goodness.
With a helping hand from my husband, who digs all the holes,
is a collector of Japanese Maples, and has a passion for fruit trees and
vegetable gardening (and honestly is much better at seed starting than I am) we
will be designing gardening spaces from a blank slate around our new home build
in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina.
I hope you will follow along to share in our adventure.
Karin
