Zack's Waterwise Paradise
This example transforms a yard from vacant lot to a consciously designed waterwise landscape -- front and back -- that hosts a variety of plants from ornamental varieties to a fruit and vegetable garden.
The bare lot before construction, as seen in this aerial photo, contained a mix of unmaintained caragana, lilac, and chokecherry, along with wild grasses and knapweed.
Design
Water feature
Irrigation
We designed our landscape to fit a three-tiered layout featuring riparian and rock ledge habitats. The tiered rock wall connects our house and patio to the yard's lower levels. Reduced water use and low maintenance — particularly, not having a grass lawn to weed, water, and mow — were key landscaping choices.
Irrigation
Water feature
Irrigation
During house construction we installed a 1500-gallon basement cistern, fed by rainwater and snow-melt channeled from the roof downspouts. The cistern supports a garden water feature and can substitute for city water in our drip system. The drip system, installed and maintained by Gardenwerks, delivers water to the roots of each plant, rather than spraying across the property, thereby reducing water usage.
Water feature
Water feature
Our recirculating water feature (think tiny brook) located on one level of the terraced yard, creates a riparian planting zone that is now lined with flowers and shrubs, attracting birds that appreciate flowing water and the vegetative cover.
Garden plants
The garden hosts a diverse array of flowering shrubs, perennial flowers and semi-dwarf fruit trees. Grape and kiwi vines cover portions of the backyard fence, and a shade garden fills a corner of the yard where neighboring trees block the sun until mid-day. Plants were sourced from nurseries in Montana and a dozen other states, and include a number of species rare in the Helena area (some made it, some didn’t!). The plantings create alternating seasonal blooms, with new plants in flower almost every week from early May into September.
Vegetable garden
Vegetable garden
We also wanted an opportunity for vegetable gardening, and that’s provided by three raised beds on the bottom level of the yard.
Fruit providers
Vegetable garden
We’re growing a pear tree, an apple tree, two pie cherry trees, a peach tree (which has only produced once in five years) and two types of small crabapples for the birds. Shrubs that provide edible fruit for people include haskap, chokecherry, serviceberry, bush cherries, gooseberry, golden currant, elderberry and rhubarb, plus vines consisting of three types of edible grapes and a kiwi (with very, very small fruit).