The Layout of Our Edible Landscape: Part 3 of 3

   

     For the last part of our edible landscape design we will discuss our plans for the front yard.  Just as with the backyard, we will use edible plants for nearly all our landscaping.  There are three exceptions in the front yard.  The first is a huge catalpa tree that has likely been growing there since our house was built in 1927.  The second is a redbud that covers the entrance to the path along the side of the house that we use for storage.  Lastly, the third are Irises that have been passed down in Kate's family from her great grandmother to her grandmother to her mother, and finally to her.

     The landscape design for the front yard has some challenging elements compared to the back yard.  The biggest challenge is so much of it is shaded by the giant catalpa and a huge pine on the neighbors property.  The former owner filled these shady spaces with hostas.  We pulled half of them up last year and gave them away.  If anybody out there reading this wants some just let us know as we will be removing the rest this year.  The other challenge in the front is the hill from the sidewalk up to the house where mowing and maintenance is hard.  The drawing below details the property lines, sidewalk and stairs (shaded), and established trees with their canopy.

     The trop of the drawing depicts our house with the sidewalk running perpendicular to the street and meeting the city sidewalk a the right corner of our property.  It's a little strange that the property line is not perpendicular to the street, but our sidewalk and stairs are.  While the lower right corner of our stairs is on the property line, our neighbor has encouraged us to go ahead and take over the landscaping on her property near the stairs so we can have symmetrical beds on either side of the stairs.  Our front yard will then ultimately look like this:

     Edible shade loving plants are limited but winterberry, mint, blackberries, currants and blueberries can grow well  with some shade and will certainly be more interesting than the hostas.  The lower left corner on our hill will be a series of blueberry bushes.  The blueberries will alternate variates between ones whose leaves turn yellow and ones whose leaves turn red in the fall.  Above the hill and under the Catalpa the two long rectangular sketches represent blackberries that will be held up vertically with wires between 4x4 posts forming a hedge or screen.  The seven smaller squares (2 of which are more triangular) will be 7 different variates of mint kept contained by in ground planters and stone boarders.

     

     On either side of the sidewalk, connecting to the street, will be a dwarf apple trees.  Planted on either side of the stairs, from the street up the hill, will be columnar apple trees, pawpaws, and cornelian cherries.  Both sides of the sidewalk beyond the hill will be smaller annual vegetable beds.  Between the sidewalk and the street the three circles represent another three small annual vegetable beds.  This year we hope to plant them with popping corn.  We will add a flagstone path across the property allowing easy access within the gardens, and allowing the mailman to make deliveries without having to come up and down the stairs.   One day we will also add a patio under the catalpa tree.  The two large circles near the house represent cherry trees that will have a mature height of fifteen feet.  The small circles represent bushes and shrubs like currants, honeyberries, blueberries and the like.  The specific plantings matching up with the numbers on the design are as follows:

   1.    Blackgold Cherry

   2.    Kristin Cherry

   3.    Cornelian Cherry

   4.    Cornelian Cherry

   5.    Wells PawPaw

   6.    Sunflower PawPaw

   7.    Haralson Apple

   8.    Sweet 16 Apple

   9.    Northpole Columner Apple

   10.  Scarlet Sentinel Columner Apple

   11.  Honeysweet Honyberry

   12.  Wildhoney Honeyberry

   13.  Honeysweet Honeyberry

   14.  Polaris Blueberry

   15.  Polaris Blueberry

   16.  TBD

   17.  TBD

   18.  Ben Lomond Black Currant

   19.  Blanca Currant

   20.  Pink Champagne Currant

   21.  Red Lake Currant

   22.-26.    TBD

   27.  Weeping Mulberry

   28.  Wild Honey Honeyberry

   28.-43.    Five each Bluegold, Bluecrop and Toro Blueberries

   44.  Prime Jan Blackberries

   45.  Prime Jim Blackberries

   46.  Banana Mint

   47.  Chocolate Mint

   48.  Grapefruit Mint

   49.  Sweet Pear Mint

   50.  Orange Mint

   51.  Peppermint

   52.  Spearmint

   53.  TBD

   54.  Ligonberries

   55.  TBD

   56.  Alpine Strawberries

   57.-60.    Annual Vegetables

   61.  Wintergreen

     So if you have been keeping track we ultimately will have three patios:  a shade patio under the catalpa in the front, a sunny patio in the backyard, and a small patio surrounded by the main raised bed garden.  Counting all the plants between the front and back we will have 40 fruiting trees, 60 fruiting bushes, 2 asparagus beds, 2 raspberry patches, 2 blackberry hedges, and 2 strawberry patches.  All in all we will have 85 different variates of edible perennials.  All this in a city lot!