This week, I want to highlight a great example of a thriving and prolific permaculture garden among the pines here in Maine. After visiting this client and her garden a few times now, I’ve got a serious case of garden envy and a great wealth of ideas for the coming seasons.
at a glance permaculture~
No plant goes without in this bright front yard and it’s easy to see that despite the constant rain all June long, this front yard is overflowing with bounty. This garden is also a great example of mixing a traditional suburban yard with mowed lawn paths and hugelkultur mounds and close sowings of flowers, vegetables, herbs and grasses. Although the tightness of planting may seem like a recipe for disaster, planting on a staggered schedule (ex: 3-sisters planting) to insure plants don’t overcrowd one another and planting more compact varieties (pole vs bush beans) can lead to a flourishing local ecosystem.
flowers on flowers~
An important note in this garden is the wide variety of flowers that are available to pollinators coming and going from the neighbors yards. This variety is a great way to maximize the amount of pollinators that would benefit from these flowers and can only help the plants they’re around.
Intermixed with kale, cabbage, squash and tomatoes is a rainbow of flowers that truly brought a smile to my face. Comos, sunflowers, scarlett runners, roses, marigolds, echinaceas and sedums were vibrating with honey and bumble bees as I walked around admiring them. Along with providing for pollinators, these and other flowers help play roles in the overall development of the garden. Marigolds are great for attracting the good and repelling the bad for tomatoes. Scarlett runners double as a food source and can shade out more sensitive plants like lettuce in sunny spots.
veggies, herbs + greens~
Poking out from underneath tall sunflowers or bushy nasturtiums, vegetables thrive in this front yard.
The star of the show for me, was this huge squash in the middle of the layout. Spilling over into mulched paths this boy cannot be stopped and is keen on showing off it’s massive leaves. Also sucking up as much sun as it can is this wall of scarlet runner beans. This beans are one of my favorites and are so fun to grow. They didn’t make it to my garden this year but I’m looking forward to using them in future 3-sisters plot.
While I’ve become more familiar with wild herbs and how to identify them, I don’t have much experience with asparagus. I don’t eat it myself so have little to no intent to plant it, but it was interesting to learn they produce berries. Well, berry-like seed pods that help them self-seed as the plant matures. I’m not sure how old this particular patch but it may be a couple of years old.
In true permaculture fashion, the last photo displays an example of companion planting. Kale, onion, cabbage, nasturtium, dandelion and cosmos all play a role and feed off of one another. Kale and cabbage are obviously for eating, while onion and nasturtium blossoms repel the bad and attract the good (pollinators). Dense planting of nasturtiums, kale and comos acts as suppression of unwanted plants or weeds. Although loathed by most homeowners, this garden happily welcomes the decisive dandelion. This high-key medicinal plant also acts as an accumulator in the garden and helps with soil health. Its tenacious roots are known accumulating out of reach minerals that are too deep for other plants and bring them to the surface. If you’re not on the dandelion train at this point, I dunno how to reach you~
uncommon features~
Here in the great state of Vacationland, weed is legal for fun and medicine and can be an uncommon addition to a permaculture garden. While I haven’t taken the leap into outdoor cannabis gardening, next year might and so I’m going to be looking into growing it via permaculture and see what I can learn and try.
In this garden, my client applied the permaculture principles as you would for any other plant and provided helper plants around the main cannabis plot. A pollinator in the form of a deep red hibiscus, a great plant for hummingbirds, bees and a vitamin-c rich cup of tea~ Also helping shade out the ever-marching suburban lawn are dandelions and a vining plant I can’t quite identify.
shady spots
While having a front yard in full sun is kind of gardening on easy mode, gardening in shady spots can be a fun way to challenge yourself. Hostas in any shape and color are a favorite for shade or forest gardens due to their eye-catching leaf patterns and dense foliage. They’re also a great suppressor when it comes to unwanted plants or grass and can spread unaided if you rather a more natural look.
Other hallmarks of shade gardens include sweet violets that will spread in small areas not yet pushed out by the hostas. Ferns, hedge grasses and mugworts are also options for a mix of orderly and sprawling.
hugelkultur up front~
While traditional hugelkultur mounds tend to be 7′ mounds of whole trees and brush, suburban-scale mounds can be closer to raised beds. This garden has plenty of space to sprawl and could probably fit a 7’x 7’x 10′ bed, keeping these beds manageable means you’re more likely to use and take care of the space with your traditional 9-5 sacrifice. Using fallen trees is a great way to keep the risk of fire down, is a free resource if your property has wild areas close by, and can be a way to introduce beneficial mushrooms to your garden, further increasing your biodiversity and biomass creation. Mulching is used in this garden as a pathway through and around beds. It’s also used as a weed suppressant and is more biomass that can be added to the overall structure of the mound.
With this use of permaculture, hugelkultur and intensive planting, this garden flourishes in so many ways, despite the strange New England summer we endured. The contents of this garden showcase a diverse amount of food sources to help supplement current food sources on property and off.
- Medicinal flowers, roots and leaves to supplement the first aid kit
- Dark and peppery greens to provide minerals
- Flowers to lift the spirit and provide for pollinators
- Large cabbage and ripening tomatoes for fermenting or canning
This garden was a delight to walk through and with its fragrant breeze and buzzing of furry bumbles, it was a snapshot into what all of our front lawns could hope to emulate~