Plants - General
Here is another case where the planning process can prevent problems later (sometimes years later) on. The larger trees and bushes which you put in will be the most difficult to relocate if they were put in the wrong place. It is very good to research the larger plants that interest you and find out things like if they have invasive roots, how big they grow and how fast and if they are fruit or nut trees, do they need a pollinator or are they dioecious (separate male and female plants).
Planting a large species with invasive roots near underground services (eg electrics or plumbing) can cause problems later on, you first indication of problems may be the toilet backing up, which is unpleasant at the best of times. Camphor laurels, palms, many eucalypts and some figs can cause this problem.
It is REALLY important to make sure when you are deciding where they will be placed, that you take into account how big the plant will eventually grow rather than how big it is now. I am speaking from experience! Will the tree crowd out or shade parts of your, or the neighbours front yard or house. Our mulberry, a wonderful and multipurpose tree, has gotten large enough so that it can shade the solar hot water if that part of the tree is not pruned. Trees can be kept smaller by pruning, but the trick is to start out as you mean to go on, ie prune them regularly from the start rather than letting them get huge and then try to recover the situation by attempting to prune them back.
Mulberry in Summer
Mulberry in Winter
Many fruit and nut trees will need a compatible cultivar of the same species nearby to be fruitful. This includes pome fruit (apples, pears) and some stone fruit such as cherries and plums, which will need another compatible tree nearby to ensure fruiting. It is not enough just to have another cultivar, it must be the right cultivar. A little research at the start pays off with productivity later.
Some fruits like kiwifruit and carob trees are dioecious and will need both a male and female plant to produce. Years ago I bought a carob because my daughter had food intolerances, including chocolate. She had grown up by the time it flowered, but the look of the flowers concerned me so I went on the net, and sure enough we had a male tree, no carob for us!
Productive trees and bushes can take many forms, not just fruiting plants although this is a lovely way to make a front yard more productive. Shade trees to sit and relax under, trees and bushes which screen the view and reduce the wind, as well as natives for birds and insects, are all productive in their own way even if they do not produce food. Of course, fruiting trees and bushes can also provide these services and multipurpose plantings are always a good idea.
Plants – Small Perennials and Annuals
Annual Vegetables – There are a huge number and variety of annual veg available to be grown from seed or as seedlings. For the most part they are familiar and don’t require any modification to our diet to allow us to include home grown veg. If you don’t already grow your own veg you will need to do some research to find out which types and varieties you like but which also grow well in your area and under the growing conditions you can provide. For example shaded areas can grow leaf crops and that sunny nook near the front of the garage could be ideal for tomatoes. Hopefully there will be some overlap between the veg you want to grow and microclimates identified in the assessment.
Most people would not recognise carrots growing in the front yard
Another decision to be made is whether or not the food you will be growing in your front yard is to be shared or retained for your exclusive use. This is an important decision and will have enormous impact on how you will grow annual veg in the front yard so it is important to be sure of this decision first, before continuing to plan the other aspects of annual veg growing.
With the disconnect between food growing and most suburban dwellers it is likely that only the most obvious vegetable would be recognised as food. Not many people will connect those leafy green fronds growing lushly in that raised bed in your front yard as being connected to the wonderfully tasty orange root we know as carrots. On the other hand, most people would recognise tomatoes growing on the bush (or ‘vine’ as people call it). Nevertheless, I have read where a permaculturist was sick of having his ripe tomatoes pilfered by kids at the school across the road, and so started growing a variety that stayed green even as they ripened!
Perennial Vegetables – These have their own set of advantages such as being able to plant them once and then harvest them over a number of years, they tend to require less care like watering and pest control and are hardier. Also if passers-by have difficulty identifying the annual veg you are growing, perennial veg are stealth veg by comparison!
Sweet potato - Edible leaves and tubers
Of course they may be as equally unfamiliar to the novice front yard grower and so may require some effort to include them in your regular vegetable rotation. While most people would know vegetables like asparagus, sweet potato and choko others like chicory, Okinawa spinach and oca may be less familiar.
Again, the advantage of thinking about perennial veg at the planning stage, is that you can go out and get hold of some to try on yourself and the family first, thus saving time and effort in growing something that in the end, won’t get eaten. So buy them, and if the family survives and approves, learn how to cook them in tasty dishes so that your options for home growing food are widened.
Rhubarb
Multipurpose flowers – Flowers are pretty and an expected part of a front yard garden, they also have a place in any de-lawning project, but with a bit of research the flower garden can also be a hive of productivity. As well as being attractive to us, they can attract beneficial insects (insectary), be edible, be medicinal, consumable as a tea, repel pests, accumulate nutrients so can be used as a fertiliser later, or any or all of these things combined. Again, the advantage of conducting some research at this point to work out what multipurpose and beautiful flowers do well in your area will pay off later as your design is implemented.
Alyssum - a multipurpose flower
Another consideration, particularly where the insectary properties of the flowers are concerned, is what time of the year they will flower, and for how long. For example, the insectary plant Alyssum (lobularia maritimum) which also has edible flowers, flowers for almost the full year, whereas another insectary flower Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia) only flowers from November to January, when there are lots of other flowers available.
Edible ‘weeds’
This may cause some consternation for your neighbours, or may be a learning exercise for them. There are quite a number of what we call weeds out there that are not only edible but may also be medicinal, insectary and/or nitrogen fixers and dynamic nutrient accumulators. These weeds are also pioneer species that move in to disturbed ground and hold the soil together, preventing erosion.
Mallow
Such plants include dandelion, flatweed (catsear), chickweed, fathen, sow thistle, mallow, wild (prickly) lettuce, wild carrot and plantain (not the banana kind of plantain).
It can be worth making a place for them in your plan, and you may need to do little else than set aside area of disturbed land for them to colonise and let them have at it! Mind you there is no reason you can’t help things along by looking for them in your local area, harvesting some of the seeds and then introducing them into your prepared area. They will pretty much look after themselves and guarantee a harvest.
Flatweed
Plan Lists
The output of your research at this stage is to develop a series of plant lists, to help you work out and remember which ones you wish to include in your de-lawned front yard. You can put as much information in the list as you want such as the name of the plant, type (annual, perennial, tree, bush, groundcover, climber etc.) time of the year it is productive or harvestable, how big it grows, when it flowers (if that is important) or even which parts are harvestable. Put in whatever you deem important.
When making decisions about plants for your list(s) there are a few other things to consider when deciding a plant is right for you -
• Will they do well in your climate area?
• Will the harvest be usable by you/your family?
• Is there any weed potential? (prolific self-seeders which do well in your area or are plants that grow so vigorously they will outcompete everything else, may have weed potential if not carefully managed).
• How hardy are they? What level of care will they require to be productive?
