Oh! Would cats attack the actinidia kolomitka? I love how it looks. Our neighbors have free range cats,
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I’m not quite sure on that one, no cats around here.
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You can top pawpaw trees at 10-12ft to keep them harvestable without a ladder, and there’s a lot of trees that are far larger, but they’re not tiny trees. Kiwi are a woody vine and usually given a sturdy trellis to grow on.
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Have you said what ‘short’ means?
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How short is short will make a huge difference. Consider right-of way claims for your region and whether there are water or gas lines under part of that turf.
My first thoughts were hostas and shrubby cinquefoil (potentilla fruticosa), but the width you define would likely leave plenty of room after deducting right of way for tea trees (camelia sinensis), josta-berry, shorter blueberries, some of the flowering quince options. Quite a few of the edible bearing trees can be maintained in a 15 foot swath if you don’t have underground infrastructure to worry about and are willing to put in the effort to train them to a manageable height. Yellowhorn and some of the sorbus hybrids could put on a show for you with a lilac or forsythia tossed in for color. Most of the dogwoods/cornelian cherries and some of the hawthorns would fit.
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Very helpful!! Thank you!!
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3-4 feet or less. Sorry for not clarifying earlier.
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That’s not all that short, many things would fit that bill.
How much effort you want to put into this? Basically there are plants that are care free and will produce no matter what happens to them. In Maryland blackberries are like that; native, not molested by bugs, not even targeted by birds. You give them some love in the planting and from there they’ll just do their thing.
Native berries to your area “could” be like that. I put that could in quotes because some may be very particular to their growing environment but if you find the ones that grow like weeds they may also fall in the carefree category.
Blackberries around seattle tend to be a nuisance. They seem to grow like jack’s beanstalk in the rain. They quickly grow to house and lot swallowing size. And are as hard to get rid of as Japanese knot weed and as much fun as others description of removing callerey brambles.
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That’s the invasive Himalayan blackberry, but the native trailing blackberry (R. ursinus) is very manageable and delicious. They do tend to spread horizontally, and while their thorns are less intense than the Himalayan, they do have thorns.
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I am familiar with those too. I lovingly call those the ankle breakers. They trail along and get wrapped up around your feet. Strong as monofilament line and reminds me of the old Cub Scout cable saw. Both taste delicious. Both are better picked down at the dead end and not on my lot.
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Caneberries in a parking strip will require regular pruning to keep the fruit in bounds. And likely no way to keep passers-by out of bounds.
If your ‘parking strip’ is 15x40, that is not a strip but is an entire yard, and way too big to water manually. How will you get water to it without running a hose over the sidewalk? Perhaps there is already a water spigot there.
Allow for parked car door openings and 2 feet for people to stand.
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You guessed it - we have a spigot there already. We will have to put in lines course but the sidewalk problem is solved.
Thanks - will leave space for car doors and exit/entry. Probably will put down some gravel there.
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This is exactly the point. I live just north of seattle in an adjacent suburb. Here the city mows down the parking strips without asking or warning at least 3 times a summer. A county jail chain gang and by the giant tractor with the mower heads on a hydraulic arm.
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Thank you everyone for the wonderful suggestions! I am chewing the cud on them and should be able to make a short list.
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Another suggestion/possibility-if you want to do something very different, setting up the area as a “bog” with cranberries, lingonberries, and blueberries in a bunch of living peat moss could be quite a site to see. I am slowly converting a strip along my driveway to something like this as I acquire more of the plants I mentioned, and more of the moss from various jobsites as available.
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I would love to see pictures of your bog conversion. Very interesting.
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I would love to see your big garden too!
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It’s a work in progress! I’ll be adding more to it in May when the Hartmanns order is in. But I’ll be adding more sphagnum moss before then. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow after I put another wheelbarrow load on.
Oh I wouldn’t call it big… But I’m trying to make the most of what I have available.
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