Hey Jake, do you still have a yard to mow? Or is it all just plants? I have been challenging my "green" friends to year out the land and make gardens or just go native "plants, trees, herbs, moss".
If you had a couple pictures I would share with these friends.
Here are some of the photos. It's pretty dynamic because when we aren’t actively growing something to eat, or flowers for a friend's wedding (last year) or something, we plant cover crops and other things to help build the soil (they get composted in) and also keep our yard from looking like a fallow field. It's had the unexpected benefit of creating a mini-ecosystem in our yard where small wasps keep caterpillars and other pests in check, the spiders and birds keep the wasps in check, etc. And, we don't water.
We have no grass in the front. It’s not a huge area, maybe 16’x30’. We covered the grass with two layers of cardboard, then covered that with several yards of wood chips (free because it saves tree services from having to pay to dispose of it), then did some beds and some small hugelkulture (buried wood pieces that make a mound that self-fertilizes, stays warm, and gives more surface area).
All herbs and edibles in the front yard, though in the pictures above there are a lot of flowers that were planted for a friend's wedding, mostly natives and none of the plants requiring watering. Raintree Nursery is our preferred place to get plants. Gooseberry, evergreen huckleberry, red huckleberry, echinacea, Oregon grape, thimbleberry, beans, blueberries, peas, grape hyacinth (fun way to make color-changing lemonade), filbert, kale, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes (which have volunteered like nuts and keep coming back no matter what we do) etc. At one point we were self-sufficient for vegetables, but we'd have to plant our whole back yard to support the ravenous munchkins we are raising.
We left the 1/4 acre backyard grassy with some rhubarb, potatoes, raspberries, kiwi berries, salmon berry, grapes, hops (delicious shoots, and 20lbs of cones to trade or turn into beer/year) and fruit trees because we have two young kids who need a yard. Had chickens, ducks, and honey bees, but they all died (neighbor feeds raccoons and sprays her plants) and we didn't replace. Only critters we keep now are about 10 kajillion mason bees. We do mow it, with an electric mower (we are off the grid with solar panels) but are in the process of replacing it with a wildflower/meadow mix that can be mowed.
