A space for self-sufficiency

Before, there were some ornamental plants along with the turfgrass. I started the garden (front and back) in an attempt to be more self-reliant.

The front garden is approximately 15 x 14m (50 x 45ft). What I hadn’t anticipated was how quickly wildlife (birds, butterflies, other insects, volunteer plants) would arrive; it has been wonderful getting to know this wildlife better. I plant for food (for my family and for wildlife), medicinal herbs, natural dyeing, cordage and basket making. It is all intermingled in the garden and changes each year as plants reseed in different areas.

Lessons learned and future plans: I originally had stone paths, but these were hard on my feet, were sometimes a tripping hazard, and volunteer plants grew up in the spaces between the stones. I like using wood chips now, even though they do need annual refreshing. Advice for others: I created my garden in stages, a few more metres each year, and this worked well. Not so overwhelming.

Permaculture oasis

In 2012 we began converting our turfgrass lawn with the intention of creating a biodiverse, climate-resilient landscape that offers a sense of privacy within a grove-like atmosphere.

Measuring approximately 8.5 x 23m (28 x 75ft), we designed the space with the goal of applying permaculture and food forest principles in a suburban setting.

We chose a mix of native and non-native species to maximize biodiversity, support wildlife, and shelter the property from prevailing north and west winds—while benefiting from the morning light of its east-facing orientation and afternoon shade. Native plantings include northern white cedar, oakleaf hydrangea, pawpaw, bloodroot, common milkweed, and prickly pear.

Non-native species include rhododendron, azalea, Rodgersia, hosta, comfrey, Schisandra vine, sour cherries, black and red currants, jostaberry, damson plum, Illinois everbearing mulberry, Asian pears, chums, and ever-bearing strawberries.

Lessons learned and future plans: The Illinois everbearing mulberry was intentionally planted to attract birds away from other fruit-bearing plants such as cherries and currants. It has proven remarkably effective, offering a continuous fruit supply from late June through early September—coinciding with fledgling season. Its seedless, sterile fruit also avoids the problem of unwanted seedlings, unlike other mulberry species.

Future challenge: Cool, wet springs over the past three years have led to recurring issues with brown rot on the sour cherries. Despite ongoing efforts—including pruning, sanitation, and targeted fungicide treatments—the problem persists. If not resolved, the cherries may eventually be replaced with a similar-sized, disease-resistant shrub such as goumi berry.

Mixed planting for wildlife

Before, our front yard was a typical yard with turfgrass, foundation plantings and a Sunburst Locust.

In 2020, we surrounded the Sunburst Locust and foundation plantings with a mixed planting that incorporates almost 40 species of shrubs, grasses and flowers in an area that’s approximately 1,700 square feet. The whimsical solar-powered bubble fountain attracts birds in summer while a variety of feeders and the seeds of the native grasses keep them coming in winter. The garden is alight with fireflies during the warm months as well as butterflies, clearwing moths and other beautiful pollinators.

Lessons learned and future plans:

• I started with a rough outline of what plants would fill which spaces, but it has evolved over time as I add new plants to fill empty spaces. I find it hard to resist snapping up new species of plants when they come available!
• We started off digging up the sod but quickly moved to laying down cardboard and covering it with mulch. The evening we did that, we had a dozen mourning doves and several other birds touch down to enjoy the space (likely gobbling insects that were hidden among the wood chips. 
• The full-sun side of the garden away from the tree has grown much more quickly than the shaded side, which could also be due to the sprouting times of the plants selected. It is a bit uneven, but new plants have been added to the side that is slow to fill in.
• The garden needs no watering and is full of colour when our neighbour’s lawns are dry and brown during the hot months! What an improvement!
• The viburnum struggles with a pest – small caterpillars gobble the leaves. I don’t want to use pesticides because of all the birds that use the space.

 Future plans include finding the right plants to thrive under the tree and dividing perennials to support others in making their own pollinator meadows.

Plant a laboratory, not a lawn

When we purchased the house in early 2024, the front yard was in a drastically different state than it is today. Thirty-five years ago, the previous owner had put down landscape fabric and then about 8 inches of river rock over a large area planted with predominantly low evergreen cultivars. In time, organic material accumulated in the rock, and the evergreens became under-grown with tree seedlings (especially Norway Maple, Buckthorn and European Linden) and invasive plants such as periwinkle, goutweed, Creeping Bellflower and Multiflora Rose. The area immediately in front of the house was dominated by four massive Wintercreeper (Euonymous fortunei) plants, as well as mounds of Virginia Creeper.

In the spring of 2024, we removed the Wintercreeper and put in a Hummingbird Garden near the front door with key species such as Canadian Columbine, Royal Catchfly, Cardinal Flower, and Foxglove Penstemon. We added a layer of compost under the Red Maple tree and planted native Heuchera, Wood Poppy and sedges.

Late in 2024, after removing the trees by hand, we had the river rock and landscape fabric removed by a contractor. This spring, we added more than a thousand plants to the front yard, most of which Nathan grew from seed in the back yard this past winter. The east and west ends of the yard are now planted as small food forests with apples, pears, currants, haskaps, aronia, sour cherry, blackberry and strawberries. The central area is a low prairie dominated by a variety of native grasses and sedges intermingled with short flowering plants like Nodding Onion, Black-eyed Susan, Spotted Beebalm, Butterfly Milkweed and Hoary Vervain. At the front of the property near the driveway, we have dug out an area between two municipal drains to create a rain garden, planted with sedges and flood tolerant plants such as Canada Anemone, Swamp Milkweed, Blue Vervain and Obedient Plant.

Lessons learned and future plans: We feel like the garden has been and will be an ongoing laboratory for us to discover which species thrive and which wither in these particular light and soil conditions. We’ve learned that invasive species don’t always react as expected. Periwinkle and Multiflora Rose have been easier to get rid of than we thought and goutweed has been far more difficult than expected. 

Moving forward, we hope to fully extend our garden principles (native, edible, soft-scaped, and bio-complex) to the backyard. Focus will continue to be on biodiversity—on the creation of healthy wildlife habitats for a broad diversity of organisms living in our urban setting. 

Multi-purpose space in the suburbs

Before, our front property was a typical suburban front yard with a Norway maple in the centre of a turfgrass lawn.

We transformed the turfgrass  into a multi-purpose garden. This 10m x 15m space now features native plants that bloom from spring to fall, raised beds for vegetable gardening, fruit trees and bushes, and a large rain garden.

Lessons learned and future plans: The yard is in its second iteration. Some things we’ve learned along the way include: mulch doesn’t last forever and new plants will move in without constant care; rain barrels overflow with large rainfalls, so be careful where you place them, and provide decoy plants that you aren’t attached to for wildlife to eat or be prepared to guard your favourites with cages!

Ditch gardens

Our properties have a full-sun front yard edged with a significant, often wet, ditch.

Janice, with her neighbours, Jackie and Ken, planted the ditch at the front of both properties, extending plantings with Little Forests Kingston up onto what was the lawn front of 1217 and 1213 Lincoln Drive in the Bayridge area of Kingston.

There is a shaded grass area behind the homes that slopes up to a mature forested space. Janice built a waterfall and pond on the rear slope, and both neighbours are naturalizing the forested areas. Along the east side of Janice’s property, she planted an apple, black cherry, plum and serviceberry along with a hedge for connectivity front to back with black spruce and forsythia (non-native). 

They had been purchasing native species through the Kingston Neighborhood Tree program and the Friends of Lemoine Point, but it was after attending Seedy Saturday last year and meeting Joyce Hostyn (1000 Islands Master Gardeners and Little Forests Kingston) that the project took off. The high groundwater table created an opportunity for wetland planting in the ditch in addition to increasing tree canopy, biodiversity, mitigating storm runoff and, with every plant, mitigating climate change! They installed three pocket forests on the lawn side of the ditch, and over 200 more native plants in the ditch itself. With the species lists provided by Joyce, they sourced plants at Lemoine Point and Natural Themes in Frankford. 

Lessons learned and future plans. Use overlapping cardboard with at least 3 inches of wood chips to deter weeds from getting into the beds. Also, use a planting knife — great for weeding and planting. To get the tape off cardboard boxes, soak cardboard in water.

Future plans for Jackie include eventual replacing all the turfgrass with native species, adding a stone patio under the large, established maple, and creating paths. This is only its second year, and it’s been a tremendous success with minimal plant loss.

Why not go big!

We are in the 4th year of converting our front yard which had been taken over by buckthorn, Manitoba maple and garlic mustard.

We are transitioning the 10,000 sq ft space into a healthy, biodiverse and environmentally friendly woodland garden. We began by pulling/cutting the invasive species, keeping the existing canopy as intact as possible, which was made up of sugar maples, non-native pine, cedars, ash, black walnut and black locust. We then used a small tractor to cover the ground in a thick layer of woodchips (~1ft). Since then, we’ve been pulling away sections of woodchips and filling those spaces with native plants, including trees, shrubs and woodland perennials. We’ve had many wonderful plants show up on their own, too!

Lessons Learned and future Plans: While we seem to be learning lessons every day, and often the hard way, here are two that stand out:

• Transforming such a large area has been more work than we anticipated, as we have felt the need to rush to cover the ground densely before the woodchips break down and weeds return. Having a garden this large is more work than mowing a lawn, but more rewarding too, and hopefully over time it will become largely self-sufficient.
• Be wary of aggressive native plants (we have struggled so far with Virginia creeper, sumac and bottlebrush grass). Eventually these plants might co-exist happily with their neighbours, but with so much blank space still being available, the aggressive natives can easily take over.

As for the future, we will continue filling the yard with native plants, eventually reducing the lawn size on the water side of the house. We might also remove the black locusts once the other trees fill out the canopy as we constantly need to pull out black locust seedlings!

Rain garden and so much more!

We smothered our conventional turfgrass 15 x 21m (50 x 70ft) lawn using cardboard.

The highlight of our reimagined front yard is a gorgeous rain garden fed by a rocky swale from roof run-off. For tidier look, we landscaped with shorter native Ontario plants and used woodchips for paths. One of the low-growing shrubs we fell in love with is bearberry. We leave the leaves over the winter now.

Lessons learned and future plans:

• Instead of transforming the entire yard as one big project, I should have considered doing it in stages. 
• It’s important keep careful notes on what was planted and where — once growth takes off, it’s hard to keep track.
• Maintenance was a fair bit of work, but a labour of love
• It’s important to engage adjacent neighbours to maintain a healthy relationship.
• Over time, we will replace the remaining non-native species.

A new twist on my mother’s garden             

My front yard garden is about 15 m x 13 m. When my mother, an avid gardener, moved into our home in 2011, we brought her garden with her and planted it in our front yard. This act was the genesis of our front lawn conversion. The plant mixture reflects my mother’s garden of traditional perennials and now my own mostly native plant additions. I have included a wide variety of beautiful native trees and shrubs including Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Witch Hazel (Hamamelis), Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa), and Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata). In the shady parts look for natives like Blue Stem Goldenrod and Poke Milkweed along with some grasses, sedges and ferns. In the ditch, some hardy pioneers like Yarrow, Virginia Mountain Mint and Panicum. In spring there are lots of ephemerals, some of which I didn’t plant (they came in on their own), including Wood Poppy, Wild Leek, Wild Ginger, Virginia Bluebells, Trillium, Mayapples, and Trout Lilies.

Lessons learned and future plans: My gardening style is probably best described as haphazard. My son insists I have ADHD, just like him. He might be right. It’s hard for me to plan my plantings and that’s led me to some mistakes. My advice;

• Know your plants, their aggressiveness in various conditions, and their relationships with each other and all the other beings. Choose carefully based on that information. 
• As exciting as it is to get started and to meet and plant a new friend, take the time to plan out your garden.
• Start small to learn as you go. Don’t take on too big a project to start. It’s quite a bit of work and you will need to constantly monitor for unwanted plant guests as the plants grow and fill in gaps. Get to know those unwanted plants so you can identify them. 
• Learn how to winter sow! Seeds are much cheaper and easier to get than nursery plants. 
• And most importantly, spend time with your plants, watch who is in relationship with each species, thank them for their generosity and beauty, let them help you become more grounded in this place. 

A new addition is the thicket/hedgerow we’re trying to encourage between the two driveways. We coppiced the Siberian Pea Shrub that was already there and added Black Raspberry, Wild Plum and Red Mulberry along with some native grasses and flowers.