How To Start A Rebel Garden Without Overwhelm (Part One of Three)

Your yard doesn’t have to be a weekly chore chart disguised as “curb appeal.” If you’re tired of mowing, watering, fighting weeds, and feeling boxed in by neighbor expectations, I’m sharing a different path: the rebel garden, a small section of lawn converted into a densely planted garden of helpful native plants. Think one or two parking spots of habitat that can feed birds and pollinators, reduce chemical use, soak up stormwater, and store carbon in roots and soil. 

This is Part 1 of a three-part series, and we start with the Reclaim phase. I’ll help you look at your property like an investigator and identify the spots that quietly waste your time: the muddy drainage area, the crispy strip by the driveway, the fence line that always needs trimming, the steep hill, the sandy corner, or the space nobody ever uses. You’ll pick two or three possible locations, outline one with a hose or flags, and “live with it” for a week so the project stops being an idea and starts becoming real. 

We also use my simple decision filter for sustainable landscaping: eliminate chemicals, feed birds and pollinators, save clean water, and store carbon. You’ll choose one clear reason for your garden so every next step gets easier, and you’ll hear why waiting for the perfect plan keeps most homeowners stuck. If you want to go deeper, you can build alongside us in the 10-day Rebel Garden Challenge starting June 19th, 2026 at a betteryard.org. Subscribe, share this with a fellow lawn skeptic, and leave a review so more people can reclaim a piece of their yard.

🌱 Join our challenge --> A Rebel Garden in Ten Days

Learn more about getting your own Rebel Garden at ABetterYard.org.

Transcript

Welcome And The Three-Part Plan

Brad Tabke 0:07

Hello and welcome, my friend, to the A Better Yard podcast. My name is Brad Tabke, and I'm the founder here at A Better Yard, and it is my absolute honor to have you here with us today. This month we're doing something a little bit different here. So instead of talking about a specific plant or a landscape technique or one piece of the F's filter, we are going to spend the next three, yep, you heard me right, three episodes walking through the process of growing a rebel garden. Yep, growing a rebel garden. I'm super excited about this. It's the crux of what we do here at a better yard. And I'm just excited to have you here with us for the journey. And so we're going to work on this today. So before we get into the three parts, let's answer some obvious questions for you.

What A Rebel Garden Is

Brad Tabke 0:51

So, what exactly is a rebel garden? Because you're going to hear me say those two words a lot over the next few weeks. And a rebel garden is a small section of lawn that gets converted into a densely planted garden of helpful, usually native plants. And so typically that means native flowers, grasses, and other plants that support birds, pollinators, healthy soil, clean water, mitigates climate change, all great things that we believe in deeply here at a better yard. And so most rebel gardens are intentionally small. And the reason for that is we want them about 150 to 250 square feet, roughly the size of one or two parking spots. So the because the goal isn't to just transform the entire property overnight. You want to make sure that your home is manageable, make sure that this process is doable for you. And the goal is to take one piece of lawn that isn't doing much for your family or the environment or whatever you would like to be have happening and turn it into something that actually does good work and makes the world a better place. And a rebel garden helps you reduce chemical use. It creates food and habitat for pollinators and birds. It helps water soak into the soil instead of running into storm drains. It stores carbon in roots and soil. And perhaps most importantly, it proves that there is a different way that we can landscape. Around here, we use the Fs filter to guide everything that we do at a better yard. So that's E eliminate chemicals, F feed birds and pollinators, S save clean water, and S store carbon. Fs, E F S S. A rebel garden is one of the simplest ways that you can put all four of those ideas into action. So over the next three episodes, we're going to walk through the process of creating a rebel garden. So this is the first of three parts. And so I am, again, always really excited to have you here. And so over the next three episodes, we're going to cover the three phases of building a rebel garden. The first phase is reclaim. The second phase is reject. The third phase is if I could speak. The third phase is rebel. And so reclaim is about choosing the space and getting everything ready to go forward. Reject is about

The Lawn Treadmill And Why Quit

Brad Tabke 2:55

deciding what parts of the perfect lawn system you are opting out of. And rebel is where we finally build something together. And you get a good, wonderful, useful part of your yard back. And so does the habitat and local ecosystems for your neighborhood. By the end of this three-part series, you'll understand the entire process from identifying an opportunity in your yard to creating a garden that helps eliminate chemicals, feed birds and pollinators, save clean water, and store carbon. So today we are starting with reclaim. And so, but before we get there, I want to ask you a couple simple questions here. So have you ever looked out at your lawn and thought there has to be a better way? You are tired of watering, you are tired of mowing, you are tired of fighting the weeds, you are tired of spending money on fertilizer, you're tired of watching parts of the lawn struggle every summer. You're tired of feeling guilty about the chemicals that you have to use in order to keep your lawn looking the way the world expects it to. And you're tired of hearing pollinators decline, disappearing sawnbirds, contaminating water and climate change, but not really knowing what to do about any of it. And so maybe you're also tired of feeling like the only choices are keeping the exact same lawn forever and ever and turning your entire yard or turning your entire yard into a prairie overnight. So neither of these options sound very appealing. And most homeowners aren't looking for more work that we're busy enough as it is. You are looking for a better solution. And that's why we created Rebel Gardens. And so Rebel Gardens is some a product that we have here at a better yard, but it's also a framework and a learning system that you can use on an everyday basis to make the world a better place. And so that's what we're teaching here today is the first step of this manageable framework for building a rebel garden. So it is a way to start improving your yard without being overwhelming. One section, one project, and one act of rebellion against a landscape system that keeps asking more from homeowners like you while giving less back every year to the ecosystem and world around us. So before we can build a rebel garden, we need to reclaim a piece of our yard. And that's what today's episode is all about. So most of us didn't inherit a didn't choose a landscape system that we live with. If you have a newer home, all the topsoil was removed and when we when the house was built, and it was just toss sod on top of that that put two trees and maybe a couple ewes in front or some boxwoods. None of those things that support any life that has evolved here in the upper Midwest, and they called it a day. That was a landscape. That's not a landscape that works for the world that we live in. And so that is what we got. Some of it came from previous homeowners, some of it came from neighborhood expectations, some of it came from zoning codes from your city and from the state. Some came from decades of marketing that convince us that a successful yard is little more than a large patch of perfectly manicured turf grass. Think about what this is asks of us. So every week we are a uh a worker to our lawn during the summer and in the times where we want to be hanging out with our family, playing in the yard, sitting in a hammock, riding in a boat, all those kinds of things that we want to be doing in our summers that we've earned. And instead, we are getting all sweaty and hot mowing when we water when it gets dry. We use a ton of clean water. We fertilize and add more chemicals when it starts to turn yellow and when it starts to get hot. We spray weeds whenever they appear. We control insects when those show up. We do a lot of aerating, of overseeding, of uh power raking, and then we repeat this process time and time and time again. And if it doesn't look perfect, we somehow fail and we're made to feel like we have failed. And the strange part is that most homeowners don't even enjoy being on this treadmill anymore. We are all trapped in it by worrying about what our neighbors think about us, what ordinances are, what homeowners' associations have to say about things. And meanwhile, this lawn is consuming resources without contributing much of anything back to our ecosystems. It's not feeding pollinators, it's not feeding birds, it's not helping with biodiversity, it's not storing any carbon. And in many cases, it requires many, many more inputs to survive than it gives back. And so here is where our reclaiming begins.

Walk Your Yard Like An Investigator

Brad Tabke 7:09

We need to start looking at our yard differently. So this week, I want you to begin the process of looking at your yard differently. I want you to walk around, not as a homeowner, not as someone responsible for mowing it. Walk it like an investigator. So ask yourself a simple question: what parts of this lawn am I actually using? Look at it through a different lens. Look at it through someone who doesn't uh have the responsibilities and the onus of making sure that our neighbors are feeling good about how our lawn looks or that other people can play on it and use it. Look at it through an independent lens and see about what you could change. So, what part of this lawn am I actually using? Where do the kids play? Where does the dog run? Where do people gather? Where do you walk? Those are things that deserve to probably remain as a lawn, at least for now, and we can talk about that in the future. But what about the rest of it? What about the corner where nobody ever uses? What about the drainage area that's always wet and muddy? What about the strip along the fence that is just always taking a ton of time for line trimming? What about the area along the driveway that just gets a ton of crabgrass and dries out every year? There's a really big hill, there's a place along a retiring wall, a retaining wall, there's a spot that stays constantly dry because it's really sandy. Any of these things are ways that are opportunities and spaces where you can begin with a rable garden. So, what I want you to do is you have an assignment for this week. So I've a Better Yard podcast releases on Tuesdays every week. And I've been pretty good about getting them out every week here. And so, what I want you to do is between now and this week, I want you to make sure to go and walk that yard. And I want you to find a spot that is one of those things. So in the next seven days, I want you to complete these simple steps. So, one, identify potential locations. You don't have to choose one yet, but I want you to find two or three that will work for you. Places where you don't want to mow anymore that you want to add. And they should be, they can be as small as 50 square feet, they can be as large as 250 square feet, anything like that. There's these little areas that you want to stop mowing and you want to plant those as rebel gardens. So I want you to find three of those, walk your property, find three spaces that could become rebel gardens, check the driveway, the mailbox, utility boxes, garage areas, the corner of the backyard behind your garage that nobody uses. The goal isn't to find a perfect location, it's just to create some options for you. So now I want you to grab some landscape flags or a hose or some marking paint, some string. I use a hose, usually whatever you have, and outline what the garden could look like and actually put something on the ground, see what it would look like. Most people never actually get this far. We just think about doing it. But I want you to actually choose one of those spots and put a mark in the ground as to where you think this rebel garden should be. And so now you've marked a space out, it stops being an idea and it starts to be an actual project. I want you to start believing and seeing what this could be if it was a spot that had bumblebees in it instead of just being barren open areas that just are grass. What would this be if it had some songbirds that were chirping in there and eating some in the middle of winter, eating some purple coneflower seeds? What would that look like? And how would that make you feel if you had and provided that kind of habitat? And so let's start working that direction. So I want you to leave it there. Leave, don't rush, leave it, the outline in place. Look at it from your kitchen window, from your bedroom window, pull into the driveway and notice it, walk by it every day as you're walking around. Would you miss this area? Does it feel too big? Is it too small? Would that area make your yard more interesting to have something there? Is it near a fire pit? Like where, what, how did would this work for you? What problem would it solve? And let that space tell you what it wants to become. And so at the end of the week, I want you to choose. I mean you decide: is this a place where you want to move forward with a rebel garden? And if it is, next Tuesday we'll have the next steps for you as to what we can do with those. So I want you to choose a location that feels most likely to succeed. And it's the location where you'll get the biggest impact for the least amount of effort, and you'll have just reclaimed part of your yard. So that's the first spot is reclaiming a part of your yard, as we're talking about today, in the first step in making sure that we're moving forward with a rebel garden.

Mark The Space And Choose Purpose

Brad Tabke 11:37

So every successful rebel garden solves a problem. Maybe you're trying to reduce mowing, maybe you're trying tired of watering, maybe you're tired of uh fighting weeds every year, maybe you want more butterflies, more lightning bugs, more birds. Maybe it's a wet area where you want to manage water, and maybe it is someplace where you just want something more beautiful than another patch of grass. And moving into the next phase, I want you to write down the primary reason you are creating this garden. One reason, not 10, one, because that purpose will guide every decision that follows. So I also want you to think about the F's filter. So inside a better yard, we use the F's filter to guide every major landscaping decision where we want to eliminate chemicals, feed birds and pollinators, save clean water, and store carbon. As you're evaluating potential locations, ask yourself, how does this space help me do one of those things? You don't need perfect answers, you don't need the the biggest and the best thing. You're simply you're simply trying to make a clear direction on how we move things forward. So, one of the biggest lies that homeowners tell themselves is I'll start when I know everything. We try and get everything figured out to start in the beginning. And I just want you to take the next best step. And so the truth is that many people spend years researching and never take action. What's the best plant? What is the what is the uh native butterfly that we're trying to save today? How do we use water in these types of situations? And we don't need to be worrying about any of those. I just want you to find a location. So I want you to build some momentum. You don't need to find the perfect spot, you just need to find a starting point. You need to find one area of your property to reclaim and make it useful again from those from lawn that doesn't do much for anybody. So that is how every rebel garden begins.

Momentum Over Perfection And Next Steps

Brad Tabke 13:21

And I'm really excited to help you through this process as we move through the next couple episodes of the podcast. And so the next episode we will be talking next Tuesday, we'll be talking about rejecting. And so we are going to talk about things that we reject, and that's the second phase of building a rebel garden. And we'll discuss that what parts of the perfect lawn system you're choosing to leave behind, how to prepare mentally for the change, and how to identify the obstacles that keep most homeowners stuck before they ever even start. And before, because before you can build something better, you have to stop doing something else. If this is all something you're really interested in, I will give you everything you need here in the podcast to move some things forward there. But if you want to have every single step of the way outlined for you and moving forward, I'd like you to go deeper with us and actually build a Rebel Garden alongside other homeowners and a cohort of folks who are going to be part of the 10-day Rebel Garden Challenge starting on June 19th, 2026, inside a better yard. So we'll walk through every step together. We'll choose a location, select a rebel garden recipe. We will order plants, we will prepare the site, install, we will maintain, and we will figure out what the next steps are. And you'll have an entire community of fellow rebels working alongside you the entire way. And so I'm really excited about this challenge. So again, it is the Rebel Garden Challenge. It's a 10-day challenge. So within 10 days, you will have everything you need from start to finish to get a Rebel Garden up and actually planted in the ground. So that's uh buying plants, that is doing the whole thing. So day one is a Friday, day 10 is a Sunday, and by that Sunday, you will have all of your plants uh in the ground and a beautiful garden starting to grow. So you will uh begin with us, and I'm really excited about this process. It's really important that we continue to remove this lawn and add new plants that support birds, that support pollinators, that support monarchs, support bird bees, and is a really great way to move forward for yourself and your family that's healthier and better for our world. So until next time, I'd like you to figure out where to reclaim a piece of your yard, mark it down, live with it, choose it. And remember, you don't need to change your entire landscape. We'll just need to start with this one piece. So if you are excited about doing this, come over to a better yard. The show notes has the link to join us. It's $47 for the 10 day session. You get lots of personal contact with me, and we'll do this all together. So a betteryard.org. See you inside.