1. Our small city garden
Turning our small city garden into a beautiful space to sit and grow food. Original design tweaked in the middle to make it low maintenance and ‘tidy’ in order to sell the house.
Design framework: SADIMET
Survey, Analysis, Decisions, Implement, Maintain, Evaluate, Tweak
Dates
October 2014 - March 2017
Creating a base map
As this was my first land-based design, I started the design process by creating a detailed base map with several overlays.
For guidance I used both Permaculture Design: A Step by Step Guide and The Earth Care Manual. Click here to see the base map and overlays in detail in a new window. |
The house is an end terrace, built in 1890, and sits on the corner of two roads - both small with little traffic but lots of parked cars. Neighbouring children often play in the street.
The garden covers an area of 94 square metres. It runs around three sides of the house, and is overlooked from the street in all directions. The north side consists of a yard, giving access to our back door and five other houses. This is a shady area where we store our wheelie bins. In the garden we have two water butts, a compost bin, a bird table, several planters and a mini greenhouse.
A concrete path runs around the east and south sides of the house, directly next to the wall. Between this and the pavement is soil covered with woodchip, and planted with a number of large shrubs (lilac, orange blossom, fuchsia), herbs (lavender, rosemary, sage) and fruit bushes (gooseberry, redcurrant, raspberry canes).
My partner has lived here since 1990, but is not interested in gardening, so when I moved here in 2007, the garden was neglected and overgrown. Since then I have attempted to tame the space and make it more usable, and to grow some food and flowers, with varying degrees of success. For a year from January 2014, before I started my diploma, I weighed and recorded all food grown in the garden and noted how much this would have cost if bought in the shops. I subtracted the cost of elements brought into the garden (compost, planters, seeds), and concluded that, rather than saving money, growing food had cost us £61 over the course of the year - a price worth paying (and which would be reduced in subsequent years as not all elements would need to be bought again). I wrote about this in August 2014, and a full analysis of this observation period can be found here.
While traditionally in permaculture design the garden close to the house falls entirely within zone 1, I do visit and use different areas of the garden quite differently, so using The Earth Care Manual as a guide, I split the garden into five zones - click here to see the map in a new window.
Zone |
Description |
Where? |
Use |
1 |
Used
daily |
Back
door |
Main
access to house |
Compost
area |
Put
out compost |
||
2 |
Used
frequently but not every day |
North
west corner |
Put
out recycling and waste. Not visible from house. |
Patio
area |
Used
daily in summer, but rarely in winter. Not visible from house unless front
door open. |
||
3 |
No
through route, only accessed for specific purposes (eg
to plant or harvest) |
Main
planting areas in south and east |
Planting,
line of occasional access (only by me) to maintain outside of willow hedge.
All visible from kitchen and living room. |
4 |
Wildlife
area |
Outside
kitchen window |
Bird
table, visible from kitchen. |
The north area of the garden is shaded by neighbouring houses (although does get some sunshine in the early morning and on summer evenings), and the north east by the orange blossom and lilac trees. Little currently grows in these areas. The south west corner is shaded by the acer and by the neighbour's privet hedge.
The wind is often channelled down the road to the south of the garden and around the corner to the east. The living willow hedge blocks much of this from the patio seating area, but the south side of the garden does tend to get a fair bit of litter blown in. Click here to see my map of shade and wind in a new window.
The surrounding area traditionally had many market gardens and the local soil is generally considered to be good. However, this house was originally a corner shop, and the area that is now the garden was concrete for a long time. The current garden was built on top of this, with a retaining wall added and filled with rubble. The soil is relatively shallow. I have added compost that I have produced each year, and also several bags of organic, peat free compost.
Water is collected in two 100 litre water butts from the roof. The second water butt was added in spring 2014 and since then, we have not had to use the inside tap to water the garden at all.
We were reluctant to go through a formal 'client interview' process for our own garden, so this information was gathered through many conversations over several week. This table shows a summary of these conversations.
Jenni |
Peter |
||
Feelings
about current arrangements |
Visual |
Worry
it looks scruffy in comparison to neighbouring gardens |
No
views on this |
Function |
Like
the idea of growing food, but tried for a few years and never produced more
than a few token vegetables. |
Low
maintenance |
|
Responsibility |
Responsible
for all garden implementation and maintenance. I like to potter but
realistically I don’t do this every day and often kill plants through
neglect. |
Will
help with heavy jobs when necessary, but does not want any day to day
involvement or responsibility |
|
Plants |
Like
the long flowering and colour of fuchsia and acer, which provide colour long into
autumn. However, I feel the lilac takes up too much space and reduces light
in the kitchen. |
Fond
of orange blossom, lilac, fuchsia and acer |
|
Visibility |
Feel
overlooked but love having relatively private patio to sit in |
Feels
visibility aids security |
|
Needs,
wants and vision |
Peaceful,
private place to sit, be able to eat out on summer evenings and have friends
round in the day |
Keep
orange blossom, lilac, fuchsia and acer |
|
Grow
more food |
Low
maintenance |
||
Encourage
more wildlife |
No
reduction in visibility |
||
Look
presentable |
|||
Personal
limiting factors |
Time
(work plus voluntary work) |
||
Lack
of skill |
Stage 2: Analysis
Using our 'client interview' conversations as a base, I identified three key functions for the garden, and attached a goal to each of these.
- Privacy: I will feel happy with the level of privacy in the garden
- Aesthetics: I will create and follow a clear, simple maintenance plan for the garden (with monthly lists of jobs) to keep the garden looking tidy
- Food production: During 2015, the garden will produce more food (measured in value, not weight) than in 2014.
I experimented with several processes for choosing systems and elements:
- Functions, systems and elements
- Consideration of permaculture ethics
- Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, constraints
- Web of connections
- Random assembly
Earth care
We have composted all our kitchen waste for years, and used the compost in the garden. This is a small garden and we have quite a few containers which need watering, but we have two water butts which collect rainwater from the roof, and this has always been sufficient to water the entire garden all year. I do buy in potting compost to replenish the pots each year (peat free, usually organic, from the local garden centre), and containers are always sourced second hand or made ourselves. I would like to find a way to improve the soil without resorting to buying in too much outside material.
In 2014 (before starting this design), I finally resorted to using organic slug pellets after many frustrating years of losing crops to slugs. These did make a difference to how many crops survived, and I think were responsible for a good salad harvest. However, many of the plants were not that productive anyway (for example two courgette plants produced a total of three courgettes) so I feel the tradeoff is not necessarily appropriate). I do need to address slug control though.
People care
I will be doing the vast majority of the work in the garden, so any plans need to be both manageable and enjoyable to fit around work. Peter is very fond of a few large plants (lilac, fuchsia) so it is important to him that they stay.
Fair shares
As our garden is so visible from the street, I feel that neighbours and people walking past also 'share' it in some respects. The garden edges directly onto the pavement, and I feel it needs to be relatively neat and tidy. The willow hedge is my main concern in this respect. Ultimately I would like to grow enough to share crops and preserves with friends.
Observe and interact
I officially moved into this house in 2007 so have had many years of observation, including an entire year of tracking how much veg I grew. I can draw on this when making decisions about what to put where.
Obtain a yield
The garden is small, but I've had many yields from it so far (largely compost, herbs and soft fruit, but also some salad and veg). I've also got to know many of our neighbours as it is directly onto the street. I'd like to continue to do this.
Produce no waste
We compost all kitchen waste and garden cuttings in our own garden, and any larger prunings are taken to contribute to the council's green waste recycling. I sometimes buy back the compost they make from this to add to the garden.
Use edges and value the marginal
This garden sometimes feels like it is entirely edge - just a small strip between the house and the pavement. It feels like an edge between us and the rest of the street, and I've valued the interactions I've had with neighbours and passers by when pottering in the garden.
Stage 3: Decisions
At this point I decided to remove this design from my portfolio, but later reinstated it after a 'peer pair' discussion with another diploma apprentice, feeling that the detailed survey and analysis work was worth keeping. I re-evaluated our original client interview, and kept one goal:
to make the garden low maintenance and presentable in order to aid selling the house
- Aesthetics
- Low maintenance
- Year round colour
New function |
Goal |
Decisions |
Aesthetics |
Garden needs to look neat and
presentable to show the house off at its best to sell it. |
·
Replace broken
compost bin with black dalek-style one donated by a
friend ·
Remove most of
the willow hedge (except round the seating area) ·
Plant pots with
bedding plants ·
Don’t try to
grow veg – it often fails and looks scruffy ·
Remove all old
pots etc |
Low
maintenance |
I will be spending most of time decorating
inside the house and will not have time to tend to the garden much |
·
Stick to
bedding plants bought in from the garden centre rather than trying to grow
veg from seed ·
Add extra layer
of wood chip to keep weeds down ·
Prune willow
hard to avoid having to do many small cuts |
Year-round
colour |
We are aiming to put our house on the
market in the spring, when our garden has traditionally been entire full of
sticks. We would like it to look welcoming and pretty for potential buyers. |
·
Plant all pots
with long lasting bedding plants and be prepared to buy new in the spring |
Stage 4: Implement
- Cut willow hedge and weave ends in where necessary
- Weed all areas, including concrete paths
- Prune large shrubs
- Buy and plant several quick-growing, summer-flowering plants
- Tidy and plant annual flowers in all pots
- Remove all litter, old plant pots, tools and compost bin
Stage 5: Maintain
The garden became a place I could go to escape the chaos of the house (where we were engaged in many, many months of sorting and decoration), and I spent a lot of time out there in 2016 and early 2017 just sitting. It was the only place where I could look around and not see a long list of jobs that needed doing. My yield changed from 'a few bits of veg and salad' to peace, enjoyment, and many hours of sitting looking at the flowers, which lasted right through the winter.
Stages 6 & 7: Evaluate and Tweak
This design met the permaculture ethic of people care really well, having the unexpected yield of a place of peace in amidst the chaos of the rest of our lives. Being outside also gave the neighbours opportunity to come over and chat about our progress. In terms of fair shares, the garden was much more pleasant to look at from the street, and the lack of time involved in maintaining it meant I could contribute more to the DIY indoors. Some elements of earth care were present - I watered the pots (mostly recycled or home made) from the water butts, and used a combination of our own compost and peat-free potting compost from the small local garden centre. However, I didn't check the origin of the annual plants, and I did use a small amount of organic slug pellets to keep them alive. I wasn't entirely comfortable with this, but in such a small garden, slugs can decimate most of the flowers overnight (this has happened before) and I was keen not to lose them on this occasion as I wanted to focus my attention elsewhere.
The garden is still productive. We have a good crop of rosemary, oregano, sage and chives which we use both fresh and dried in cooking. We produce a bumper crop (for such a small space) of gooseberries and redcurrants, which I turn into jam. There's even an apple tree in a pot, which I grafted myself and hope one day will produce fruit. And we have many flowers, mostly self-seeding now (outside of the pots), which bring me a great deal of enjoyment and the occasional indoor display.
Design reflections
After a few months, we decided to move house, and at this point I decided to remove this design, unfinished, from my portfolio. However, after a 'peer pair' discussion with another diploma apprentice, I reinstated it as it demonstrates my early learning, particularly around mapping, and I did not want to lose that part of my diploma journey.
I learned a few things about both myself and my relationship with the garden over the course of this design. I held some set ideas of how things 'should' be done which weren't working in this small garden - growing annual veg, for example. I'd love to grow courgettes, and have done successfully once, but there is only space for a very small yield and one enthusiastic slug can wipe out several plants in one night, leaving a gaping and scruffy hole in the garden. I have always been anxious about what other people think of our garden, and rarely able to relax out there. Creating a private space to sit (before this design) was really important to me, and I've found a lot of peace in letting go of the idea that I 'should' be growing annual veg here, and instead focusing on low maintenance things.
This maybe isn't how I'd design another garden in the future, but for me, in this garden, right now, it's worked.