Andrea, by ordinary liquid fertiliser, I mean one not designed specifically for natives e.g. Thrive. Some natives can take ordinary fertiliser - brachyscome and paper daisies, which both flower for a long time, are two that spring to mind. I'm not saying you must do this, just that with a reasonably high rainfall and sandy soil, it's something that works for me. As for the rest of my native garden, which mostly consists of shrubs, most plants receive a small handfull of slow release native fertiliser once or twice a year. I avoid feeding anything I consider "difficult", eg, Boronias, Fringe lilies, Geraldton Wax etc, as I've learnt to think of these plants as lovely but short lived pot plants.

What nice lively comments, just to add more information, I took over a nasty, neglected patch, next to ours, after our garden neighbour quit. Her version of "organic gardening" consisted of doing very little in general, tearing up existing stone slaps ( you do know that square elements do give off negativ vibes-kind of style), plucking flowers occasionally and starting and failing with one attempt at a raised bed, all in all for about 8years. potential new tenants looked at it, and all 4 said thank you, and then there came no others, so in order to spare us a rioting feast of blackberry, bindweed, goldenrod etc, we applied for it and got it. so the whole place is a clean slate, regarding nice plants. We are not allowed to use any chemical sprays in our plots, so round up would not be an option. Right now, I have very little time to spare ( moving to a new flat in 6 weeks, juggeling 2 kids and a newly started small business of mine along with 2 allotments, dh working plus studying), so I went for the smothering to get some peace of mind. The celandine emerge right NOW, and it seemed important to me to fix it now, otherwise I had to do something about them reseeding, spreading...later on. We had the sheet thing going for most of the alottment for a whole season, hand weeding the nastiest spots befor covering, in 2015. in 2016 I grew green manure and dug two new beds. so after 2 h of leveling, hoeing around the edges and spreading the black plastic, it was done. I have existing beds edged with longish cement slaps /(stones?) so that made it a lot easier. I'm glad because now I can focus on some remaing "bald" patches, dig them, plant lawn seeds near the apple tree and start some more beds on others. here some pics the nasty hybrid bluebells were every where but we got rid of most of them, found some more today, so thanks a bundle, a great garden start to you all, bye, Lin That's work in progress Done, oh, and that's agricultural stuff, really resilient plastic for "silage", fermenting grass... From another angle

There surely is. I also grow Etain, along with a few other cuttings raised violas and the very best you can do is to take some soft cuttings (they root very quickly under glass). Commercially raised plants do not come true from seed (assuming they are even fertile) and will be raised afresh every year from cuttings. Whilst we can usually regenerate many of the species and bedding violas, violets and pansies with an all over trim after the first flowering, Etain (Rebecca and other early summer flowering violas) will always be refreshed by raising new plants on new roots for the most vigorous results. A topdressing of a basic balanced fertiliser will not go amiss either, especially for those of us who like to hang on to our bedding violets by hard pruning.

We live in WI, same zone and are about 5 .years in of converting several large over grown beds into native plantings. We dug a lot out and then went with the smothering route for a lot of it because we had somewhat contained yard areas of ditch lily that were just so badly overgrown. My personal opinion is to agree with Christopher C NC. I think he might of said it best, but if it's helpful I can add what I can. Smothering and chemicals do not seem to be practical with what you want to do here. It's a big commitment to kill off everything and start over, without ending up with just as many or more of what you wanted to get rid of to start with. There are plenty of natives that will love to grow in that soil as is. Things like common/wood violets, goldenrods, big leaf aster, golden grounsel, black eye susans, milkweeds, butterfly weed, etc should have a chance to hold their own, and the bees and birds will benefit a great deal. There are also native shrubs that could work and be beneficial. Someone mentioned Joe Pye weeds and culver's root which might work nice for you also (our rabbits love the joe pye weed when its first sprouting so we don't have as many. They also ate all our cone flower) Just go in and carefully pull out the things like garlic mustard and buckthorn, that offer zero value to wild life and that smoother beneficial plants. You can poke some holes and plant specific plant seeds. Plant just a couple kinds so you know what you're looking for as it grows, or just plant a bunch and forget it other then the worst of the bad weeds. Or if you start the seeds indoors and grow them as plugs you can use this drill attachment to make plug holes to pop them in. (I watched a master gardener use this to beef up her plantings around a pond, She said it helped by not disturbing the rest of the soil, which can encourage weed seeds to grow.) https://powerplanter.com/? keyword=power%20planter&matchtype=e&sncid=14&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand&adgroup=brand&gclid=CjwKCAjwvtX0BRAFEiwAGWJyZPjlsjDZNxN_E-CX_Ium7Ki2s5PoqBvs2ZW6QwHL0YKaNRU1RGPYZBoCpK8QAvD_BwE I've bought seeds and flats of plugs already grown from Agrecol native nursery in Wisconsin. http://www.agrecol.com/ and Prairie nursery https://www.prairienursery.com/store/groundcover-plants/page/1?_url=groundcover-plants/&_page=2 You can also check out the local chapter of https://wildones.org/ for tips and resources. They have a seed exchange met up, I think in the fall. (new members encouraged) This might also be a useful book if you are still learning invasive species called Invasive Plants of the Upper Midwest: https://www.abebooks.com/Invasive-Plants-Upper-Midwest-Illustrated-Guide/30434932321/bd?cm_mmc=ggl--US_Shopp_Trade--used-_-naa&gclid=CjwKCAjwvtX0BRAFEiwAGWJyZLZ0HNTSSa2ynRehaB0ezU1hRmI0oQoPGtXfDzjMegRobsoPz2AtkBoCHUMQAvD_BwE A link for some other suggestions of hardy natives written by Johnson's nursery expert: https://www.kb.jniplants.com/naughty-natives-part-3/ If you go on the midwest garden lovers group, or anywhere else, be careful of what you accept as free. Be careful not to introduce things like snow on the mountain, orange ditch lilies, etc or invasive bugs/worms. Lastly if by chance you are in our area in SE WI and feel like you need a weed wacker, we might have an extra you can borrow. I also agree, you are giving back the land a great gift.