Here are a couple photos from a garden area next to our house… what I am calling our Showcase Permaculture Garden. It’s only a couple seasons old, so there is still a lot of growth and development to come, but I thought it would be fun to share it so far. This garden has multiple functions:
Showcase – This area is next to the main driveway next to the house. Since it is prominent and convenient for all visitors, it serves as a great example of a “permaculture design”. We have a mixed planting on multiple layers that is useful as well as beautiful.
Aesthetics – Many of the plants here have large or prominent flowers, interesting shapes/leaves, or nice fragrances.
Food – We’ve got a few perennial herbs we use on a regular basis next to the house, so we don’t have to walk far to harvest them for the kitchen at the last minute.
Unique – We planted a few common species that most people would be familiar with (sage, thyme, mint, iris, etc.) as well as a number of great, but unique species (flowering quince, Cornelian cherry/”edible dogwood”, clove currant, etc.).
Here are a couple photo pairs (non-labeled and labeled) from two sides of our Permaculture Showcase Garden. A couple of notes about the planting:
- Honeysuckle – invasive species that I did NOT plant. It is growing all over this area of Tennessee where we live. I don’t want it on the farm, and we are slowly getting rid of it. But our sheep like to eat it. And it does have a wonderful fragrance.
- Privet – also an invasive species that I did NOT plant, but I am using it. It is growing just upwind of the Cornelian Cherry. It is acting as a “nurse plant”. It is blocking the wind and offsetting some of the heat from the western, setting sun until the Cornelian Cherry becomes more established. I continue to cut it back as it begins to flower, so that it will not set seeds. It will eventually get removed, but all in due time.
- Comfrey – it is huge right now. We are using these Comfrey as a “chop and drop” mulch and soil builder. It will be chopped back in the next few days or so. We are also going to use this Comfrey as “seed stock” for plantings into the Forest Garden we are developing.
- Many more plants! – There are a number of other plants that are not labelled or cannot be seen in these photos.
