Front Yard Garden without Grass - My project

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by Greathomesteader, Nov 25, 2015.

  1. Greathomesteader

    Greathomesteader New Member

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    Hello friends,

    Idea for edible garden or raised bed garden.

    A big project for me.

    Pictures ---> My Front Yard Garden

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Greathomesteader

    Greathomesteader New Member

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    What do you think about it
     
  3. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    I liked this idea and have slowly replaced lawn with plants,even with most of the area taken up with a driveway and turning bay.

    If you are putting cardboard down, you probably dont need to take the turf off especially if you can get a good layer of mulch to go on top of it. If you have a local lawn mowing contractor who is willing to dump his loads at your place, you may not even need to use the cardboard.
    What I used to do when I mowed lawns was to cover an area with a good two to three inches of clippings,water it if it was a bit dry and step all over it to compact it. This cooks the grass that is growing underneath. I used to do this at least two if not three times then with the last layer leave it fluffy. Once it had cooled down, I planted into it.
    I dont do this now but thats only because I no longer have access to such a valuable resource .....and am at the point where I need to add things like woodchip rather than clippings.


    I have a garden between the house and the driveway that I now I pretty much leave it to do its own thing and only intervene when something (usually convovulus) starts to take over.
    I used to think it was quite a small area but now realise that its actually quite big, thanks to the fact that alot of it is actually council land.
    I planted it out with different sorts of trees and native plants/ferns. Some things were already there which I left.
    I only have a little bit of lawn left here along the edges of the gravel driveway and right down by the road.
    I cant plant that up as it would cause problems for my neighbours and me to see on coming cars when we try to get out of our driveways, although I occassionally wonder what I could put down there instead of the grass.

    What I have is a huge Christmas plum tree by my letterbox, an apple tree an crab apple, a couple of Olives, an Italian Alder, a HUGE Avocado tree with a few baby ones along the boundary. The fig I put in this area doesnt like it and is still only a metre high. Oh and a couple of loquats.
    I now know that I am very lucky with my property (and my neighbours).
    One part is underplanted with ahem, convovulus still, but the other has things like violets,native ferns,bluebells-they were already there so I just spread them around a bit more. Dahlias,roses a few things that I have no idea what they as they just turned up like a cool looking small blue flowered Iris looking thing that winds up with blue berries.

    I have started adding woodchip mulch in strategic places to help make it easier to pull out the odd bit of couch and convovulus.

    The neighbour that shares the driveway with me realised that he spent most of his days off mowing the lawn etc and has planted a range of native and introduced trees along our boundary and then mulched the whole thing with bought woodchip. The trees have grown really well and have shaded the whole area so he has never needed to weed and one day soon will create a lovely wind break for me from those nasty southerly winter winds.
    They dont seem to be into growing food so there is only two fruit trees in the whole yard, but still..... his little baby forest is putting back a little of what used to be here and does make coming home a whole lot more relaxing an enjoyable for him.

    I would like to see people using these areas to replace native plants/trees if they have enough room to grow food in the back yard.
    I feel that these things are just as important to put back as it is to grow our own food.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2017
  4. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    some cities or home owner's associations have laws or
    regulations about what can be done with the front lawn
    so i hope you don't run into those kinds of things. luckily
    here we are in the country and we can do what we'd like
    there's very little of any lawn left here at all.

    in the nearby small town someone i know had letters sent
    to her from the town saying she had to mow some wild-
    flowers she was let going to bloom. silly.

    when i look around me it is mostly empty land for a good
    part of the year (farmland which has one crop on it and
    that is all -- they do not do cover crops often, i've only
    seen winter wheat once on any of these fields). any
    change to replace any parts of these to a more diverse
    habitat would be a big gain for the area. that is probably
    why we have so much wildlife visit our plots. they're
    really the only place that has forage for birds and/or
    animals (including the bees).

    some people lament the replacement of farmland by
    houses/lawns, but to me if the replacement isn't using
    too much in the way of *cides then the diversity is
    bound to go up as people will plant flowers and other
    gardens and even fruiting trees.
     
  5. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    How are you getting on with this?
     

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