Garden planning from *serious* scratch!

[Carrie12345]

I’ve gardened on and off with a raised bed that’s around 70sf. It’s gotten less successful over the years as the trees around us have gotten bigger.  On the plus side, I’ve gotten better at keeping the deer out!

Anyway, I’ve spent years dreaming about having a much larger garden and, hopefully, a few fruit trees.   We’re building from scratch on a wooded lot, so we’re going to be sitting down soon to mark out the areas to be cleared, and I’m very unsure about how bold to go for gardening space.

For the record, I hate the thought of cutting even a single tree. I still have a burning resentment for the neighbors who cut down a ton of trees, and even for the brush clearing that they did.  So I’m a bit of a hypocrite. But garden area clearing for us won’t be going anywhere near any neighbors’ property lines, and will have at least a 20’ wooded buffer to the whole forest.  Anyway, the point is that I don’t want to cut any more than necessary.

It’s unlikely that I’ll have much time to trek through the woods to identify individual trees to keep or cut, or to consider their current and future height/spread for blocking sunlight.  I can sit here and see that the two oaks 8-10’ from the south end of my current bed reduce a section of sunlight by a good 3+ hours once their leaves are full. I’m not going to have that kind of info to work with.

So how can I best figure the area on an unfamiliar lot???

My current garden is mostly 30ish’ from the tree line to the east with trees around 20’ tall, and that seems to work well.  It’s less than 10’ from my house on the west, which completely blocks the sun by 2 during part of the season, which has been fine.  

I know the new property slopes down from north to south, but not by a whole lot.  The west side is the one we have the least control over (buffering from our “combative neighbor”), so that’s good, right???  I’m thinking of the woods on that side as having the same effect as my house does now, which isn’t much.

I have no idea of any of this is making sense, lol. I’m confusing myself more and more as I try to visualize both my current property and future property’s orientations! I’m trying not to think *too much about actual bed size until I have a gist of how far I’d have to clear.  If making room for, let’s pretend 500sf of beds means making the whole property look naked (and require significant lawn management), I’d rather just go with fewer beds.

I feel like I’m *this* close to knowing how to figure it all out... but there’s a piece missing somewhere that I can’t seem to find.

 

[prairiewindmomma]

Go out and sit on the property once it's yours.  You'll get a sense of prevailing winds and such as well.

Sunlight is weird. It took me a whole year living here to figure some things out because the angle of the sun here changes so much at a higher latitude.

[bibiche]

If I were starting from scratch I would absolutely bring in an expert to advise me. A few hundred dollars* investment to save a whole lot of anguished second guessing would be absolutely worth it. 
 

* or more. I’d pay big bucks for someone to plan everything for me. I don’t mind doing the work, but I want to do it right!

[Carrie12345]

32 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Go out and sit on the property once it's yours.  You'll get a sense of prevailing winds and such as well.

Sunlight is weird. It took me a whole year living here to figure some things out because the angle of the sun here changes so much at a higher latitude.

It’s more than 55,000sf of dense woods and brush.  We’ll be trying to hike through for sure, but I’m not sure how well we’re going to be able to visualize things before we have to sign off on the plan!

4 minutes ago, bibiche said:

If I were starting from scratch I would absolutely bring in an expert to advise me. A few hundred dollars* investment to save a whole lot of anguished second guessing would be absolutely worth it. 
 

* or more. I’d pay big bucks for someone to plan everything for me. I don’t mind doing the work, but I want to do it right!

What kind of professional would one look for? I’m open to it, but I don’t know who I’d call.

[prairiewindmomma]

a landscape architect can do that---a plan from a local nursery is usually in the $200-400 range.

 

Look, you're going to have your house site, right. Then you'll have to place your laterals for sewer, and your water line from either your well or your water district.  From there, you'll place your garden, which I assume you want fairly close to your house site.  Are you going to have a separate pump by your garden or are you going to run hoses from the house?  Most people place gardens behind or to the side of the home---do you have slope that you are working with? That might indicate whether you want it left or right of the house. Likewise, prevailing winds and the microclimate.

Here, we would also be talking about defensible space around a home in case of wildfire....and that alone would decide a lot of your garden/shade issues.

I think you have a lot more to worry about than which trees to remove, but maybe you are already thinking about these things....

 

[Carrie12345]

23 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

a landscape architect can do that---a plan from a local nursery is usually in the $200-400 range.

 

Look, you're going to have your house site, right. Then you'll have to place your laterals for sewer, and your water line from either your well or your water district.  From there, you'll place your garden, which I assume you want fairly close to your house site.  Are you going to have a separate pump by your garden or are you going to run hoses from the house?  Most people place gardens behind or to the side of the home---do you have slope that you are working with? That might indicate whether you want it left or right of the house. Likewise, prevailing winds and the microclimate.

Here, we would also be talking about defensible space around a home in case of wildfire....and that alone would decide a lot of your garden/shade issues.

I think you have a lot more to worry about than which trees to remove, but maybe you are already thinking about these things....

 

Yes, I am.  I know the general placement area and orientation. What I’m trying to figure out is how much farther to clear beyond planting area. It’s not going to be precise, but I’m aiming for a safe bet.

Around here, builders generally clear for septic and well, driveway, and about a 20’ perimeter around the foundation. I’m aiming to have an additional 20x40 area cleared to fence for gardening.  But I can’t plant tomatoes in the shade of a 15’ tree, so I have to give SOME sort of distance. When they go to clear, I’ve got to tell them how much. 10’? 20’? 15 in one direction and 30 in the other?

It’s not specific trees that I’m trying to pick and choose. The entire property is border to border trees!  The extra clearing will cost hardly anything while they’re there.  If I wait until after they leave and see that I need an extra 10’ for even a small garden, it will cost a fortune or many, many hours of hard manual labor for felling, cutting, digging, and grading. (And I’m no fan of dh felling trees. Last time was a train wreck with a single tree that wasn’t particularly large.)

[bibiche]

52 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

What kind of professional would one look for? I’m open to it, but I don’t know who I’d call.

Yes, landscape architect or designer first. I assume you’ll need a good arborist too. You’re a steward of the land now, gotta take good care of it. 😉

[Carrie12345]

27 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Yes, landscape architect or designer first. I assume you’ll need a good arborist too. You’re a steward of the land now, gotta take good care of it. 😉

I actually have more trees on my current property than we’ll probably end up with on the new one, lol

[prairiewindmomma]

Fwiw, in the summer here summer shadow is equal to length of the tree. In the winter, it’s like triple the length. So, if your concern is primarily tomatoes, you can take that into account....you don’t have to account for winter shade.

[Pam in CT]

Given that your starting-from-forest-scratch circumstances, I think I'd actually get an arborist consult first, to point out the trees of particular value/interest worth keeping-- who can visualize what they'll look like as standalone specimens without the forest pressing in upon them  Who can also advise on what you need to think about, in terms of grading and drainage, to keep them healthy and happy through and past the construction interval (like, preventing the trucks from trammeling over their root system), and also what sort of trimming / limbing up will get your handful of mature specimen trees looking awesome.

Once you've figured on the handful you want to save and where they are / what direction their shade will fall, it's likely to be fairly obvious where your garden plot will need to go.  Have the builder get that part well and good graded when the foundation work is being done.

Then you'll have loads of time, as the house goes up, to wander around the rest of the plot and figure where you want landscape plantings and etc.  And you may not need much: if you have a handful of good-looking mature trees, AND a nicely-fenced vegetable garden with some clematis and pole beans and a clambering rose or two, you may not need much more than a few box/Alberta spruce/flowering shrubs to soften the lines of the foundation.

[Carrie12345]

8 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

Given that your starting-from-forest-scratch circumstances, I think I'd actually get an arborist consult first, to point out the trees of particular value/interest worth keeping-- who can visualize what they'll look like as standalone specimens without the forest pressing in upon them  Who can also advise on what you need to think about, in terms of grading and drainage, to keep them healthy and happy through and past the construction interval (like, preventing the trucks from trammeling over their root system), and also what sort of trimming / limbing up will get your handful of mature specimen trees looking awesome.

Once you've figured on the handful you want to save and where they are / what direction their shade will fall, it's likely to be fairly obvious where your garden plot will need to go.  Have the builder get that part well and good graded when the foundation work is being done.

Then you'll have loads of time, as the house goes up, to wander around the rest of the plot and figure where you want landscape plantings and etc.  And you may not need much: if you have a handful of good-looking mature trees, AND a nicely-fenced vegetable garden with some clematis and pole beans and a clambering rose or two, you may not need much more than a few box/Alberta spruce/flowering shrubs to soften the lines of the foundation.

I think that’s going to be my first call.  Googling found me a few arborists that are actually nearby, which kind of surprised me. Those listed as landscape designers farther out have beautiful websites sharing their full-out, start to finish, grand hardscape projects. I just want to be told how far to cut. It feels like calling a highly regarded chef to ask how long I should bake a potato for, lol. 

At this point, I can’t really give them dates. My “on paper” closing date is in a couple weeks, but hasn’t been officially scheduled yet The goal was sooner rather than later. The builder is eager to get moving (which is good!) I don’t yet know how long I’ll have between the day I own and insure the land, then sit down to sign off on the plotting, and then get the equipment in. But we’ll see what we can pull off!

[KungFuPanda]

It's not as simple as saying you need X square feet of cleared land for Y square feet of garden.  You're gonna need to sun map your place.  For example, my cleared back yard is about 70 x 70.  It doesn't get full sun ANYWHERE because I'm surrounded by mature hardwoods.  The most I get is about 5 hours in the middle of my back yard.  The height and type of trees you have matters.  You have to expect them to keep growing, so what is enough clearance for a few years won't be enough down the road.  The angle of the sun is different in different seasons, so you can't make garden selection decisions based upon the shade you see in November.  My neighborhood is heavily wooded.  If I were going to get full sun anywhere in my back yard, I would probably need another 500 square feet cleared to the East AND West of my current garden spot in addition to the 500 square feet I already have cleared.  It really doesn't matter how wooded the northern part of my garden is because no shadows are cast from that direction.  If your garden is a person, think of her with her arms outstretched East and West, her back to the North, and her face to the South.

You can clear tall trees and still have a very natural-looking space.  You can plan a food forest full of trees and bushes that will feed you.  A fruit orchard can be sited closer to your garden if you keep the trees pruned small, but will need to be further away if you let them grow to their full, natural height. Clearing enough land to allow for a full sun garden doesn't mean all that land has to stay completely cleared.  You can plant all sorts of fruit trees and bushes and cane fruits that won't get tall enough to shade your garden space.  I grow quite a bit of food in my backyard garden that only gets 5 hours of sun, but I gave up putting the sun-loving stuff out there and got a community plot that has FULL sun.  It made a bigger difference in my production that I ever even imagined.  Sun  . . . who knew? 

You can still be snugged up to the trees if you keep them to the north of everything.  (I'd clear enough so that a tree that falls can't hit your house.) Clearing land doesn't mean you have to MOW all of that space.  You can plan pollinator meadows or small ponds, or picnic areas, or sheds for equipment storage or fruiting and flowering bushes.  If you have a large wooded property, it's probably full of some plants and bushes that you can easily move to edge your clearing without spending money on landscaping plants.  You might even live there for a full year before planting anything because you will make different decisions after you know the place better. I'd probably wouldn't follow my own advice and do a small raised bed vegetable garden right away, but I wouldn't make that structure so beautiful and permanent that it would annoy me to relocate it the following year.

Hope this helps.  

 

ETA:  If you are planning to save any lone trees within your clearing, make sure your builder knows to clear outside the drip line and not just around the trunk.  People have lost some beautiful trees that were marked to be saved because the bulldozers cleared under the canopy and destroyed the roots.

Edited April 21, 2021 by KungFuPanda

[HS Mom in NC]

It depends on what kind of gardening you want to do as to what your priorities should be.

We're doing permaculture here, which is self-sustaining because it maximizes resources and designs food forests that work with nature. All the hardest work is up front, and later it's just maintaining a system that mostly maintains itself. Make a sun map through observation or with a software program for landscaping. Depending on where you are, you might be able to hire a permaculture consultant.  Read up on lasagna mulching. If you already know you'll cut trees and you want raised beds, study up on hugelkultures so everything that's being cut down goes into directly feed everything you plant in a way that stores some water. The Ruth Stout Method is another strategy for maximizing resources with minimal cost and effort. Using natural or artificial swales is another strategy for water flow management that maximizes sloping land to direct water into strategically placed planting areas like hugelkultures and ponds.  Utilize your local (usually by county) extension office-ours teaches taxpayer funded classes taught by experts in their field at no additional cost to attendees. Ours does everything from low cost soil testing to classes on basic bee keeping, growing berry vines, blueberry bush growing and trimming, fruit tree growing, and providing locally grown plants that thrive in the area at a steep discount. Pavlis as a good book on building natural ponds (no pumps.)

[Carol in Cal.]

I’m currently reading a book called “Creating a Forest Garden” that I’m really enjoying.  It is written for England, so the climate might be different for you, but as a Way of Thinking about what you’re trying to do I think I would be extremely helpful.  

I am big on keeping trees, and also big on bringing in food from my land, so we have a lot in common.  In your shoes I would bite the bullet and get the house built and the immediate area cleared except for maybe one shade tree nearby for the summer heat, and leave the rest for now.  I recognize that you feel that it would be a lot cheaper to do more clearing while the house is being planned and built, but I would argue that that is a false economy because it would involve removing trees that are irreplaceable later, at least at the size that they are right now, and you might seriously regret that.  

Also, be aware that you can’t always plant where trees were.  Tree removal does not remove the significant root structures under the ground, and those can wreak havoc on attempts to till the soil, let alone plant in it.  Roots of mature trees travel at least twice the distance from the tree trunks as the canopies do, so you are talking about a lot of land that is very possibly difficult to plant in.  

Furthermore, if you get rid of lots of trees you end up with a lot more land to maintain.  

Far better, IMO, to live there for a few years, really get to know the land deeply, and then be that much wiser about these irrevocable decisions.

[KungFuPanda]

44 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

It depends on what kind of gardening you want to do as to what your priorities should be.

We're doing permaculture here, which is self-sustaining because it maximizes resources and designs food forests that work with nature. All the hardest work is up front, and later it's just maintaining a system that mostly maintains itself. Make a sun map through observation or with a software program for landscaping. Depending on where you are, you might be able to hire a permaculture consultant.  Read up on lasagna mulching. If you already know you'll cut trees and you want raised beds, study up on hugelkultures so everything that's being cut down goes into directly feed everything you plant in a way that stores some water. The Ruth Stout Method is another strategy for maximizing resources with minimal cost and effort. Using natural or artificial swales is another strategy for water flow management that maximizes sloping land to direct water into strategically placed planting areas like hugelkultures and ponds.  Utilize your local (usually by county) extension office-ours teaches taxpayer funded classes taught by experts in their field at no additional cost to attendees. Ours does everything from low cost soil testing to classes on basic bee keeping, growing berry vines, blueberry bush growing and trimming, fruit tree growing, and providing locally grown plants that thrive in the area at a steep discount. Pavlis as a good book on building natural ponds (no pumps.)

I had to dismantle my huglekulture beds.  It seemed like such an awesome idea, but in my rainy, woodsy space I ended up with soggy gardens that never dried out and sprouted mushrooms, moss, and mold.  I wanted to love it, but it wasn't a good fit for my particular space.

[HS Mom in NC]

53 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I had to dismantle my huglekulture beds.  It seemed like such an awesome idea, but in my rainy, woodsy space I ended up with soggy gardens that never dried out and sprouted mushrooms, moss, and mold.  I wanted to love it, but it wasn't a good fit for my particular space.

Yeah, I can imagine that's too much water retention in a wet place.