Challenges

Existing plantings, deer, limited time for maintenance, full Southern sun

Katie and Laurent live in a suburban area close to Duke Forest and the many deer who call the forest home. Before Bountiful Backyards, their yard was filled with a wiregrass lawn, evergreen hedge against the house and a few large flowering trees. They loved these beautiful, but not-so-useful landscaping plants and wanted to work them into their new landscape. They were not so fond of the grass and ready to take the plunge and turn their front yard from a resource intensive lawn into a beautiful and productive space full of fruit and veggies.

Solution

Design a deer resistant and low-maintenance front yard loaded with fruit trees and berry bushes

Designing for Low Maintenance

Working around and along with the existing trees and shrubs, we designed a low-maintenance landscape loaded with drought tolerant fruit. Strawberries create a living ground cover under their existing smoke tree. Pineapple guavas, peach and a fig thrive in the hot full sun and the man-made heat sink of the driveway and sidewalk. Nitrogen fixing bush clovers add nutrients to the soil so they don’t need to bring extra fertilizer in each season, while they create privacy at the same time.

Deer Resistant Plants

The deer pressure in Katie and Laurent’s neighborhood is not as intense as some spots in the Triangle, so we we skipped a deer fence in favor of planting aromatic plants for keeping deer away from newly planted fruit trees. Our favorite deer resistant plants are culinary herbs, so we started with a raised herb spiral constructed out of stone. Most culinary herbs grow incredibly well here as long as they are elevated a bit to get the drainage they need to thrive. Additionally, most culinary herbs are evergreen, making them a perfect choice for a formal garden full of bright winter color!

Starter Veggie Garden

Katie grew up gardening with her father and wanted to share the fun of a veggie garden with her son. Because the family has limited time, we started small to ensure success. We double dug a 8×4’ garden and planted it intensely. This small space has been more than enough to provide the Dubois family with greens galore; especially when amended with compost made on site with the family’s food scraps!

Boy, do we have lettuce – it’s fantastic! And turnips, and beets, radishes, and some carrots, parsnips and even zucchini and tomatoes getting started… It’s a dream. :)

– Katie and Laurent