I have ambitious plans to beautify the outside of our house. Part of this is to eliminate grass,because I hate mowing, and since all of the full sun on our property is in the front, build beds large enough that I can secretly grow vegetables behind the flowers without raising the ire of the neighbors.
And then there's covering up those glamorous sink holes that showed up last year!
Here is the plan. The dark areas are the new beds. Now that the roof is finished, my goal is to dig the beds during the month of September. If all goes well, I will be able to buy stone and lay the stone retaining walls around the beds as well.
The dark parts of the diagram are the new flower beds. There should be enough room to plant some perennials for a butterfly garden, and then a hidden strawberry patch, herb garden, and watermelon patch, and some zucchini plants. From the street, all you will be able to see are flowers, if all goes according to plan.
It's like a stealth agriculture plan! I'm such an anarchist...
The stealth garden plan
August 28th, 2008 at 06:26 pm
August 28th, 2008 at 07:58 pm 1219949888
August 28th, 2008 at 08:43 pm 1219952617
August 28th, 2008 at 08:55 pm 1219953315
Sounds like a GREAT idea. I likey.
August 28th, 2008 at 09:33 pm 1219955613
August 29th, 2008 at 04:19 am 1219979961
Thriftorama - I can relate. But you'd be surprised about some of those old conservative neighbors. Many of them are secret gardeners and might help you out. Herb perennials are usually quite handsome plants - good to be tucked in between the flowers in the front. And I thought I didn't have a raccoon problem when I started my first Seattle garden. All it takes is a couple of developing ears of corn.
August 29th, 2008 at 06:26 pm 1220030782
Strawberries can be grown beneath trees! They leaf out in spring ahead of the trees and are bearing fruit when the trees are fully leafy. But they will have gathered enough sun to make good berries and expand their size so that you can thin them out and create new strawberry patches with the thinnings....If you grew strawberries in N.O., you probably need to grow a different type there in OH[? Is that where you are?].
Oh, the everbearing Alpine type strawberries make a really cute edging for beds and walkways.
August 30th, 2008 at 06:17 pm 1220116620
August 31st, 2008 at 02:17 am 1220145461