Forgaging Ahead: Landscaping the Future
At Foraging Ahead, our mission is to help people learn how to live in harmony with their local ecosystem. This means intentionally moving away from the all-too-common monoculture lawns, and embracing the natural biodiversity and native plants around you. Rapid urbanization and the ever-expanding suburban lawn-scape poses an increasingly high risk to native environments, and our biodiverse ecosystems as a whole. It is important, now more than ever, that we allow more wild spaces and utilize native plants in our landscapes.
By utilizing native plants, we create sustainable landscapes that offer more than just generic curb appeal. With the addition of non-native (but intentionally non-invasive) plants in natural landscape designs, we create a healthy ecosystem that can double as an accessible foraging ground!
Landscapes to “Foragescapes”
Our landscape designs utilize native plants as the foundation of the ecosystem, while our non-native plants are used as permaculture food production. Together, these plants form what I like to call a “Forage-scape” where you can cultivate your favorite fruits and edibles, all while attracting pollinators and beneficial insects!
Foragescaping goes beyond the newly-popular idea of “Foodscaping” by layering natural systems over ornamental landscapes. By implementing foragescapes while focus is biodiversity, we’re able to provide a wide range of habitats for pollinators and beneficial insects. These designs also are conscientious of your natural ecosystem - for example, clearing out a section of forest on a mountain might allow you to plant some open-prairie species, but the soil conditions will always be much better suited to forest plants.
This is an example of a forageable and beautiful landscape design. You might notice how this design both plays into, and subverts typical design elements. The evergreen Yaupon hollies that would typically be used as a backdrop, are instead used to provide separation between plants.The hollies provide a natural wall to separate the highly aggressive - but edible - Jerusalem artichokes from the more tender native perennials. This design really shows off its aesthetics on the other side of the walkway pictured, where our fig tree is the main accent. This fig tree is strategically placed on the walkway to help break up sunlight and provide dappled shade for the house, and the native blueberries against the wall. We’re able to combat the picky nature of Figs by surrounding it with deep-rooted plants that will help draw nutrients to the top of the soil, while the wild strawberries choke out other weeds.
While it might look unconventional at first glance, this landscape provides in all 4 seasons (or, 14 if you’re in North Alabama like me)! By creating a mix of spring and summer blooming perennials. we’ll have beautiful fall leaf colors, and the hardy berries of the beautyberry bush will provide gorgeous colors in the winter.
This landscape will always have new colors to display. The best part of this design, though, is that every plant can be used for food! From the tuberous roots of the Jerusalem artichokes, to the naturally sweet flowers of Virginia bluebells, this garden design provides for you and the environment.
The concepts and features used in this design can be applied on larger scales. Here is another example of a beautiful hybrid design that completely reimagines what a “lawn” should be:
This forageable design provides plenty of native habitat space while incorporating some of the client’s favorite flowers for cut arrangements. The design is self-sustaining and requires almost no maintenance - a feature common among natural landscapes.
If you’d like to learn more or are curious about how your space could look with a foragescape, please feel free to contact me any time by using the contact us page!
