idea for my blank slate back yard

[rainbowgardener]

I do try to grow native plants as far as landscaping. However as far as growing food that would be very limiting. My food growing is only in the raised beds or containers which helps keep them from spreading. Ginger and banana fall in that category.

Saw palmetto, dwarf palmetto, needle palm, cabbage palm are all native in GA. I know I am in very north GA, so just because something is native in parts of GA, doesn't mean it is native or even hardy in my locale. But in these global warming times, we often can and maybe should be planting things from a zone higher or so. They are starting to plant olive trees and other mediterranean stuff in England.

[rainbowgardener]

Here's how those beds pictured above are looking now!

garden beds end of March.jpg (37.06 KiB) Viewed 3298 times

garden beds end of March2.jpg (42.89 KiB) Viewed 3298 times

So I have one more of these to fill and plant and then the big quarter circle bed which is more or less the area of 1.5 of the 8x4 beds, but deeper, so will take a lot of filling.

After these are all planted, then I will go back to working on what I am now calling Stonehenge, building the circle beds.

I put a small potato patch in at the south end of the deck (about 6x4), but I want to make that bigger. I want to plant flower seeds all along the fence line (as well as mixing some more in with the veggies). I have a ton of containers to fill and plant. .... Gardeners never lack for something to do!!

Bottom bed has a row of purple dragon carrots left to right across the top, then a row of lettuce, three tomato plants across the middle, then a row of mixed lettuces, then a row of regular carrots. Some parsley and a marigold popped in at the ends. You can see I started mulching around tomato plants. It's my mixed mulch of grass clippings, some pulled weeds, fall leaves. The lettuce and carrots are too tiny to mulch yet. If I find time to run some brush through the chipper-shredder, I may put some wood chips on top of the other mulch.

Top bed has three more tomato plants with nine broccoli plants along the edges, plus a little parsley and a marigold.

Right hand bed has half rows of peas (sugar snap on one side, regular on the other), kale , chives, cabbage, spinach, swiss chard, dill.

Square bed in the middle has silver queen corn. I have pole beans soaked that I will plant next to the corn plants today. I have heard and written about three sisters plantings for years, but this will be my first time to actually try it. In this 4x4 bed I think I will plant ONE squash plant in the middle, let it wind around and then trail out over the bed into the path.

The last 8x4 when filled, I will plant as two 4x4's. One will have peppers mixed in with some basil, chives, onion sets. The other will be another three sisters, with regular (not silver queen) corn.

I will keep filling in with more herbs and flowers as I go and then the bed with all the cool weather stuff will be replanted later.

[applestar]

[pinksand]

It's looking great RBG!

[rainbowgardener]

Thanks everyone! It's coming along. It will be a work in progress for a long time, but the yard is already a lot more interesting looking than when it was a big flat lawn!

There's a native plant sale here the weekend of 4/15-16, I'm hoping to score a few more shrubs and flowers. In the meantime, I planted a bunch of flower seeds along the side fence line and planted a bunch of containers on the deck.

[hvinodh]

nice plan RBG.,
The plan was looking very attractive and impressive.,

[rainbowgardener]

here's some of the flowers on the deck

deck flowers 4-2016.jpg (50.43 KiB) Viewed 3148 times

deck flowers 4-2016-2.jpg (60.67 KiB) Viewed 3148 times

deck flowers 4-2016-3.jpg (70.38 KiB) Viewed 3148 times

Since these pictures were taken, there are more containers done and more herbs popped in all the containers. There's also nasturtium seeds planted in some of them, so hopefully they will continue to get more floriferous.

So far re herbs I have mint, lavender, fennel, dill, french tarragon, oregano, green and red basil, sage, rosemary, lemon thyme, lemon balm. Yes there's parsley too for parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!

[applestar]

I forgot to start basil seeds! (but fortunately not too late )


....everything looks great @rainbowgardener. I bet the place is starting to look more like home now with your deck of flowers coming alive possibly in familiar pots. I love and am envious of your "homesteading" plans with the chicken coop and fishpond. It's going to be SO much fun!

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, they are all pots I brought from Cincinnati, so a little sense of continuity!

[rainbowgardener]

new update on the raised beds:

All of them are planted. The back half of the left hand one has a second planting of corn, which is just now starting to sprout.

I've started doing a little mulching, but there is a lot more to go.

The chairs in the back are around a fire "pit" (which isn't exactly a pit, since it stands on legs). Eventually there will be a little patio and gazebo there, but in the meantime we just sit around the fire.

[rainbowgardener]

In a different thread I posted an inspiration picture of fence line plantings:





For reality sake, I thought I should show what it is looking like now:

On that fence line, I have mullein, ironweed, coneflower, coreopsis, black eyed susan, sweetspire shrub, salvia; seedlings of marigold, cosmos, zinnia and others; bee balm, anise hyssop and probably a couple others I'm not remembering. But all of it is baby and not pretty yet. The sticks are just so Jamie doesn't mow them down with the lawn mower.

It will take a couple more seasons before it even approaches the inspiration picture. But come back in 2020!!

I don't have a lot of money, so what I have instead is patience!

[rainbowgardener]

I can come up with wonderful ideas way faster than I can implement them!

So the very back corner (northwest) has a huge old tree. Looks like this:

Those chairs are sitting around a little free standing fire pit, but everything is just sitting there. Grass doesn't grow there at all, because too shady. I've thought for awhile it should have a little patio and gazebo/ pergola. How about one like this:



placed diagonally across the corner, to break up the rectangularity of the yard some more....

Think I could DIY it?

[rainbowgardener]

Thought I'd show this overview of how the blank slate has changed:

that was last Oct

Here's a similar view now:



and here's the quarter circle bed filled. I have seeds soaking to plant in it!

[rainbowgardener]

So I planted the quarter circle with corn and beans and squash. Since the season is so advanced, I didn't do it three sisters style, but planted everything at once. A couple circles of corn in the middle, a double row of beans down each flat side (kidney beans on one side, soy beans on the other) and a row of winter squash along the arc in back.

[rainbowgardener]

So this was that fence line planting three weeks ago:




here it is now:





It has a row of zinnias, a baby sweetspire shrub, bee balm, anise hyssop, annual salvias, purple coneflower.

Obviously has a long way to go yet, but at least you can tell it is there. I will keep planting in it and the stuff in it will get bigger and eventually it will look like a flower bed.

[applestar]

I like how you echoed the circular raised bed that you are building.

...it would be fun if your neighbor would make a mirror image and complete the circle....

[rainbowgardener]

The idea is eventually there will be plantings all along the fence line in some kind of irregular, sinusoidal curve..

I like your idea thought! Unfortunately, at this point that house is vacant, being rehabbed. It has been vacant, being rehabbed the whole 8 months + that we have been here. ...

[rainbowgardener]

update on fence line plantings:







The one at the back (pics 2 & 3) has ironweed, zinnias, mullein, coreopsis, ditch lily, black eyed susan, asters, more ironweed, Queen Anne's lace, jewelweed. The ironweed, ditch lily, Q.A. lace, jewelweed, I dug up from roadsides, not clear yet if all of it will survive transplant.(I always say I'm the only gardener I know that digs up weeds and brings them home! ) The mullein, coreopsis, blackeyed susan, and some of the ironweed came with me from Cincinnati. The zinnias are from seed and the asters from a native plant sale.

Next year I will have a few more plantings and all of this stuff will have filled out and there won't be all that bare dirt!

[applestar]

That looks nice! And you have plenty of room to expand and play as they get bigger and multiply.

[rainbowgardener]

Yup! eventually it will probably be bigger, but I didn't want to set myself too huge a task to start with, especially since we are now into summer heat and the hours I can be out in the yard are a lot more limited.

[pinksand]

You've made beautiful progress RBG! I love your inspiration photo since I'm actually working towards the same goal of lining my fence with gardens to create a more intimate space Right now one side is lined with a straight bed that needs to be re-worked and curved and I have a random little curved bed on the other side with some blueberry bushes (producing for the first time this year!) and random perennials transplanted from other beds... it's a bit of a hodge podge right now. I'd love to create something like your inspiration photo!

[rainbowgardener]

" I'd love to create something like your inspiration photo!"

Yeah, me too! Obviously have a ways to go yet!

It's amazing how many people think that since the fence line is straight, the plantings along it have to be as well. Curved plantings really help break up the box shape of most yards. Here's another picture:

fence line planting 2.jpg (30.6 KiB) Viewed 3617 times

For several years I referred back to a photo I found on line, which has now disappeared. But my description of it will give you some ideas.

"
https://picklemedia1.scrippsnetworks.com ... dium.JPG?0

"It illustrates a lot of nice design principles -- use of curved lines rather than straight (how many people would have put a straight row of plants along that straight fence line, very boring and unnatural), use of a variety of materials/textures, wood, stone, concrete, terra cotta, etc., plus different plant textures, use of mixed heights and sloping heights of plants tallest in back down to the sprawling ground cover in front.

Also this person broke up the space a little, with the crossways divider part way back. Breaking up the space and having things that are not all visible from one spot or in one glance makes your space seem much bigger and more interesting. Put some pops of color up at eye level where they are more noticed, like green bird feeder (bird nester?), hanging basket of purple petunias. False perspective. Notice how the curved bump outs are much wider at the front and narrower at the back? It gives the illusion of greater distance, like the back part is very far away. You can do the same thing with a path, making it gradually narrow a little bit as it recedes, or with repeated elements like a dry stream bed or line of rocks, making them smaller at the back."

When I get to expanding and refining my plantings later, I really want to try the false perspective thing. Even that first inspiration picture at the top of this page shows some of that, with the bed wider at the front and narrowing towards the back.

[rainbowgardener]

So some year, I would love to build something that is maybe a smaller scale version of one section of this:



put it perpendicular to the fence sticking out into the yard (just before the second set of flowers) and grow vines up the trellis.

It would just break up the fence line more, give me a place have colorful flowers at eye level, put some hummingbird flowers up where the hummingbirds like them, create some space behind it that is not so readily visible at first glance, etc.

Of course that would be after we cover the chain link fence with some kind of bamboo fencing roll:

[applestar]

Fun ideas! My stuff will never be formal (...heh... Or so cleanly organized ) but I really like these.