Generally speaking, Irish people can be considered conservative. And despite the perception of us being a nation of free-thinking poets, authors and artists, when it comes down to it, we prefer the safety and comfort of conformity.
One of the ways in which our conservative tendencies are manifested is in how we use our front garden spaces. Clipped hedges, mown lawns, evergreen shrubs and power-washed drives represent the limited palette of materials that make up the majority of our front gardens. Laid out in formal arrangement, they rarely inspire and serve only to inform the neighborhood that associated household is God fearing, conscientious and above all, normal. In a decade of observation, I have seen little to challenge the norm, beyond a few herbaceous plants and a patio or two. Given the money we’ve spent on our homes in the last ten years, using the front garden as a parking lot is a criminal waste of space.
When I moved in to my home in North County Dublin I was determined to make the most of the front garden space I had available (9 x 4 metres). Unfortunately, the previous occupants had chosen, as so many people have, to rip up the vegetation and smoother it with cobble and gravel. I was undeterred. Armed with an assortment of building tools, a vision for a productive space and a complete disregard for homogenous continuity of my suburban street, I dug, raked and swept away the sterile hard landscape. Unfortunately, I revealed a choked, compacted soil that had long ago waved goodbye to any beneficial life forms. I also discovered that the half-witted contractor had installed the cobble above the damp proof course, but that’s another story. With the site cleared I set about realizing my vision for an edible front garden – albeit interspersed with the occasional ornamental.
Passers perspective...the fabric to the left will shortly be replaced with a timber fence!
‘Sure the local teens will make off with all that stuff ,’ was a frequent comment from passers-by, who gasped in amazement at my ability to convert a cobbled drive into a mature vegetable garden in one week; little did they know that I’d recently completed a show garden for a local vegetable growing group in return for mature plants! Why ruin a good story with the truth? In fairness to the neighbours, no one complained and most were happy to see the space being put to healthy use. Three years on and I have frequent visitors from around the neighbourhood, who orientate their evening strolls to see what I’m up to. I even have a retired Teagasc researcher, who drops in to advise on pest and disease control: he sprayed for carrot fly while I was on holiday last year! As for the neighboring teens, sure let’m take the stuff is my response. Even if they don’t benefit by eating the stuff, at least they might start to understand where food comes from…nobody’s touched a thing.
I stacked the cobbles as a temporary measure but they work just fine as a retention!
While I was more than happy with my instant veg plot, I still had to deal with the underlying soil problems. Thankfully, an answer fell from the sky. Living on a mature street, I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by large deciduous trees and come the autumn I collected tons of fallen leaf matter. A few curious neighbors, who had previously disposed of fallen leaves at the green waste facility, were only too delighted to heave weighty bags over my front wall. One man’s waste is another’s bounty. The previously lifted cobblestones, which I’d temporarily, but artfully stacked around the planting area, now serve as a retainer for a rapidly increasing soil biomass and a turn of the spade reveals a host of tiny soil dwellers.
At this point, I should point out that I am no expert veg grower. I may be a horticulturist and designer by trade but my approach to productive crop cultivation is perhaps most kindly described as experimental. The idea of perfectly tended monocultural rows fills me with dread. I prefer to have fun, to mix it up, adding in ornamentals, especially self seeders such as Echium, Digitalis, Nigella, Papaver and various grass species. Over the last three years I’ve expanded production to include three varieties of spuds, onions, kale, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, celery and spinach. I’m also growing blackberries, gooseberries, strawberries, rhubarb, pears, apples, mint, rosemary, thyme, fennel, chives, three Salvias and a crop of sunflowers for the birds….and my two girls.
In addition to freeing up my back garden for more leisurely pursuits and ornamental planting, my front garden has given me so much more. Its offered me a chance to engage with neighbours and the broader community, its provided a teaching tool to educate my kids on cultivation and diet, and illustrated the opportunity to reinterpret what is aesthetically acceptable on our suburban streets. If looked upon with imagination, our front gardens can contribute positively to enriching two of our most depleted resources, community and biodiversity.
Be up front about your passion for gardening.
Some things you might consider for the front garden.
