I thought this could be a place for tiny lot/residential area growers to share space saving ideas, layouts, and the successes and frustrations of trying to cram as much as possible onto a small piece of land.
I have 1/6th acre that is 1/3 house plus deck plus shed plus large driveway. I started with one 8x4 vegetable garden that became two then four then five and now taking up half of what was grass space in my backyard with 4 cattle panel trellises and a 9’ grape trellis. I was really anxious about leaving 4’ walkways between the veg beds to put up cattle panels—my small lot mindset thought this a huge waste of space when I previously did a mere 18-24” between beds—but it feels so luxurious to have room to move about and add more containers! I love it.
The fence, foundation and around my deck are planted with native flower beds, blueberries, a pomegranate and native vines, shrubs and trees (including serviceberry). I have used coated wire fencing over my wood fence in places to make easy climbing structures. In the last year, I’ve added way too many container trees and berries, so every open space along these areas/backyard fence/in and around veg gardens and grape trellis is packed. We also built three 4x2 three tiered, wooden strawberry beds on the deck, and I have a bunch of containers there as well.
We have 9’ setbacks on the sides of our house. It’s tight. One “front yard” side is “Berry alley” with currant, aronias, raspberries and established foundation elderberries. The other side only get morning sun and is “elderberry lane” with 2 established elderberries and 10 rooted cuttings growing along the property line 4’ spacing.
The front yard has another vegetable garden (getting 3 nectarines and a gooseberry or other tree along the property line in the fall), and then is all flower bed to the street with a Stella cherry in the middle. Other side of front yard is bigger and has large street, side and front of house flower gardens with another serviceberry and a redbud. The open space in the middle there is our pumpkin patch, but will become my mini orchard in the fall. The pumpkins and large melons will have to make do growing around it all and I’ll add some more shade tolerant berries in there and dense and diverse natives everywhere in there. I hope to put a bunch of containers in there as well. The only thing I’m missing is a kiwi trellis. I think devising a driveway trellis is in my future…
Please post what you are doing so we all can get inspiration and figure out how to rearrange and move everything to add more!
I have a lot of a comparable size! Not much to add, just the usual frustrations of micro managing shadows and trying to figure out how to maximize the “harvesting” of the sunshine - stacking mini-dwarf → dwarf → semi-dwarf trees from the sunny side so that they don’t cast shadow on each other, that sort of thing
On the other hand, I discovered that some things actually love shadow (huckleberries) or don’t care about the shadow (some lettuces). Also some native flowers don’t care about the sunshine nearly as much as the “full-sun” label would make one believe.
I also would love to see pictures. Not only does all of this sound amazing, it also make me feel like I should do more, so much more!
I am on a tiny residential lot, and have about 2800 square feet in the back, and maybe 1500 in the front. With rabbits, mice and squirrels, I dare not plant berries in the front. Except the elderberries I planted this week, but I will likely mostly only use the flowers of those. So trees and two pomegranates it is, alongside roses. I have flower seedlings ready to go in as well.
I also stress about the limited sun space, but also the underground utility lines that severely limit my planting space in the front.
When I moved here, I had two huge trees in the back, and one in the front. For months, I would watch the sun move across the sky, and track sunlight availability across both front and back yard in an XLS spreadsheet. You probably guessed it, I got rid of those trees, and suddenly opportunities opened up. Then I found out about high density fruit tree planting, and my world was changed forever. I will write another post listing all that I grow here tomorrow. I thought I maxed out all my available space, until I saw your post, @Eme !!
my lot is just over 1/8 acre, I’ve written extensively about it in a thread here. the house is a small craftsman from 1910 and takes up little space- the driveway is more of the space than the house footprint! I also have a shed at the back edge, a greenhouse. we are fenced in the back but not the front and long side.
a map, in which the house is drawn slightly larger to accommodate the foundation and porches.
the back alley has a little area where i try to get chip drop but they won’t now as they suddenly say a line from the pole is too low (nothin new was added, I think it’s a bigger truck?) so I’ve had no wood chip this year. the area by the driveway in the back yard has a few hazelnuts growing. on the driveway side the neighbor and I are growing roses and raspberries together along their chain link fence. there’s just enough space behind the greenhouse to store the tarps for it, and in that back corner is our little pet cemetery, I’ve been building a fruit wall there on two sides to plant in figs or ???
any rate it’s a good size for me to manage, it’s full as a nightmare jungle in season, but I like that. I keep trying to find ways to fit more and more in the ground.
I have almost no grass left, no unused space- tomorrow I’ve got access to a tiller and will be ripping the last patch of grass/lawn in the back, and using cardboard and mulch on it. I can’t plant trees along there as it’s the water lines so I’ve got to figure out shrubs I guess. or something!
I was in a 7k sq ft lot with a 2800 sq ft home in Colorado Springs. This was how i planned everything. Old photos btw.
Outskirts being the garden beds, middle - playset + platform i used for berries
Patio for potted things. Not shown but i extended the patio to wrap around the house so i could put more plants there. I wanted to give my dogs a nice run/play area too. I left my front yard barren so that people wouldn’t suspect that there’s an oasis nearby.
The people who bought my old home told me that they only did it for the garden lol. I planted a bunch of things for whoever bought it before I left and had it all on an automatic timer. No one was there for over a month and the garden was still flourishing and I gave my besties over there permission so it was being picked by my neighbors during the summer months.
When i had bought the home, everything was dead lol. I made the other side, not shown, into a random wildflower area. Some mint escaped too so there was a massive mint mound off in the rocks right beside the patio. I never watered it unless it was sweltering hot.
Sometimes i miss my old home and backyard but definitely don’t miss the hail and horrid roads.
Absolutely on the shade and native notes! I think the only important thing to look at is that part shade/shade natives can’t thrive in afternoon sun. I have a favorite flowering shade natives list if anyone wants to add along those lines. If you’re out of my region, would just need to look them up and check on your area.
Each tree can be so impactful! Our lot was a mini forest before it was demoed. We only were able to keep 3 mature trees in one back corner. But, neighbor trees as you told me can be such a big deal! On one side my neighbor has hedges of invasive honeysuckle bush that drive me insane. It’s a rental property, and I am the only one who cares to prune them. They house a huge amount of poison ivy and other awful things.
I love your chronicles! Great map! We should all map out the entire lot…that is so helpful.
Sorry about the chip drop. Have you tried calling individual tree services? I decided to hold off this year and get again next. It’s just too much work and I maxed out.
Oh and I love that your neighbor works with you for shared plantings! I recently tried to get the landlord of the rental property to pay for ripping out the invasive hedges and offered to pay for, source, plant and manage a native hedge (if they insisted on one) but no go. She just came and trampled some young little bluestem taking out one weed
I will try to get better pictures of the overall areas when it is not raining again! Here are the back vegetable gardens on Monday. All renovated this March. The wooden one was one of the “original” that we just cut a foot of width off of to make it all work. It’s my sweet potato garden and now I’m trying to grow beans on the rainbow trellis over it. The old wood was used to make the strawberry beds. Here’s a pick 2 weeks ago of those. Also of the grape trellis area crammed with containers. I still have to fix the trellis, the posts are not stable, long story. The grape is growing slow, thankfully. The Lonicera vines grew 10’ last year so we just last weekend added the posts on top of the fence and ran wires between them to hold the vines up. I plan on pruning those every winter to keep them in check.
I do have a grass area. I have little kids and they need a place to run, even it’s in circles! I have plans for it when it’s no longer needed…I would plant different if I had real soil. I have gravel/rock/concrete on the right 1/4 of the property from some ancient driveway that ran street to fence and the house was backfilled with rc6 and then 3-12” of soil instead of 24” like I told the people. So, foundation planting has been a pain, but have found ways to make it all work. Pictures to come over the weekend.
I’m jammed up like hell. Don’t know how many trees are on it. +/- 46 trees. I will have to count them someday. About 2/3 acre with house and shed and small deck on it. I gave up garden after 12 years. Too many problems not enough food. You have to be a slave to the garden. Last ditch, I tried some onions in 2 little strips of dirt that were left. Gave them up last week and putting grass back. I put a White Lady peach in the center of it.
No magic bullet. You plant the trees as close to each other as you can and make sure they get enough sun to produce fruit. And take some bonsai pruning classes if you want to push it. (Which I need to do myself.) I got trees in the back yard, side yard and front yard. I’d have some trees on the other side yard, but neighbor’s house shades it too much.
I’d have a handful more trees except rear neighbor have huge trees that shade some of the land. Plus, there is an underground telephone line going through the property that make it hard to plant in that area. I’ve already hit it twice!
I fanaticize about taking over the neighbor’s property and putting a greenhouse on it for fig trees and warm weather persimmons. The other neighbor let me plant 6 trees on his property, but only 2 are left. None did any good. Sun problems. I didn’t know how important sin was to fruit trees.
The tree that is left is a Zestar apple, about 15 years old. Never got 1 apple from it. It makes few apples, but nothing survives to eat. The other tree is a giant White Gold type of cherry that he picked out that no one can get cherries from because it is so high.
Ask you neighbors to let you plant trees on their land and you can share the fruit…if any. I tried guerrilla tree planting a few times near a trail on city land and the deer shred and killed them.
I guess I’m lucky as I have most of the trees I wanted…but…
Yes working with neighbors can be amazing. On one side, the neighbors property is totally flat and empty in the backyard. I was talking with him about planting it, and I too dreamt of buying it and expanding and even getting 2 rescue sheep. But, he unexpectedly passed away this year. The house went to a friend who doesn’t live in the area, and we expect it to be sold to a builder. Waiting anxiously to see what happens.
Thanks but I am on the opposite coast so the list of natives probably wouldn’t be super useful. We also have huge forests so full-shade natives are not particularly rare
Anyways, I tried to take a few pics of the more or less completed section of my yard. This coast is a bit more… hilly lol, so it may look quite different (I used to live on the East Coast too) - my 120ft long lot has something like 170ft change in elevation. I usually split it up into sections with rockeries and retaining walls, plant a half-circle of dwarf trees and leave a small “lawn” in the center to chill with my kid and read books. And speaking of berries - this particular section is dedicated to be a bunny trap. I only need some lazy barrier around my blueberries now because bunnies give up fast and move on to chew this dutch clover here.
