This is the plans for the new cleared lot. The aerial view looks good but I'm trying to figure out lots of the little real life details. This is what I still need to figure out:
1. What kind of ground cover I will use between berries, bike track, and fruit trees. Our current lawn is Bermuda which of course is really aggressive so I won't be using that. I'm leaning towards Fescue right now because it looks good. But some other possibilities I'm thinking about for ground cover are are mulch, gravel, or a spreading perennial (i.e. wooly thyme).
2. What fence we will use around the garden. I would love, love, love to fence the whole yard and quit with all the individual fences but we found out to built a permanent fence to code around here it would have to slice through almost half the new lot- which would ruin all the plans. Right now there are no trees up front and since it will be a while even after planting trees until we have full privacy I would like the fence to look nice. I love black fences because they sort of disappear from far away. And they just look better. It has to be deer, rabbit, armadillo, and groundhog proof!
For inside the garden in the paths, I decided to do a combination of gravel and bricks. This is my inspiration picture.
I feel really far away from the finished product but we are making some progress. Top soil got dumped last week.
Here is is after the kids ran all up and down it!
We have our work cut out for us!!!
Looks lovely! See if your local library has Rosemary Verey's "Good Planting Plans" book. It's has some beautiful ideas along the lines of your outline, with all the plants that she uses listed.
ReplyDeleteI have a little patch of creeping thyme and I wish it would creep faster... I don't recommend the mulch for paths. Around here at least, it creates hard pack foot paths that bermuda grasses and similar weeds LOVE to grow in. Bermuda grass type weeds are currently the bane of my landscaping. I would rather have any other weed to contend with. Someone seeded our lawn with it and it makes me so mad.
I recommend making narrow paths around your beds unless you are planning on mowing it (using grass). You could also look at "Gaia's Garden" which is my new favorite gardening book (permaculture and other ideas). Their approach would probably be to spread out the fruit trees and create "guilds" of helper plants around each one.