Dave’s sustainable yard is a concert of summer spectacle. He incorporates vegetables, herbs, showy, native pollinator plants, fruit bearing bushes, along with rain barrels and composting.
He’s constrained potentially aggressive plants along a retaining wall to help control spread. For example, his Joe Pye weed shines at the back of the garden. Native gardeners love this tall, late blooming plant because it brings butterflies, bees and hummingbirds to the summer garden. But be careful, if the conditions are right, this beauty will spread. Dave suggests that “you can cut the stems back by half in June. The plant will send out more stems and you should get more flowers on a shorter plant.”
His daughter, a budding gardener in her own right, suggested using an old pallet for the herb garden. He pickles his prolific cucumber crop using dill from her herb garden. He grows tomatoes in pots behind the pollinator garden.
This year Dave planted a three sisters garden in a sunny spot in the backyard. This is companion planting at its best. Detering weeds & pests, enriching the soil, and supporting each other, the corn, beans, squash work together to help each other thrive.
Dave’s sustainable yard also includes:
- Milkweed
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers, squash, corn, beans
- Rain barrel
- Joe pye weed
- Native honeysuckle
- Eastern prickly pear
- Blue lobelia
- Cardinal flower
- New Jersey tea plant
- Showy goldenrod
- Cup plant
- Composter
- Rattlesnake master plant
- Elderberry
- Dragon plant
Photo Gallery
Photos by Keith Dadey
