The Sustainable Garden

Welcome to Jennifer Carlson's Patch of Green

A sustainable garden, one that supports the local ecosystem and spurns chemical intervention, can be as beautiful as it is virtuous. Jennifer Carlson thought about how each part of her Seattle backyard garden could be engineered so that it would add up to one self-supporting loop. From rain barrels that harvest water for irrigation, to permeable paving that allows runoff to percolate into the soil, to a fence that composts garden clippings, every backyard element contributes to the landscape's sustainability as well as its beauty and productivity. Read on to see how it all works together.

Mike Jensen

Study Your Surroundings

A landscape designer and teacher, Carlson moved to this home six years ago with her husband and two children and began by studying the big picture: where the sun fell, what the soil was like, how rainwater flowed, where it collected. Then, as soon as she had ripped out ivy and overgrown shrubs, taken down a dead cherry tree, and removed lawn to widen the planting beds, she started enriching the sandy soil with coffee grounds collected from local coffee shops. "They add organic matter, which breaks down slowly, and worms love the paper filters," she says of the cast-off grounds, which normally head for the landfill in plastic bags. "Plus, they smell great!"

Shown here: Homeowner Jennifer Carlson, who runs her own design/build landscape business, holds Zelda, one of three hens she keeps to help aerate and fertilize the soil and to supply eggs.

Mike Jensen

Low-Maintenance Yard

She designed the garden to nearly take care of itself. "I'm out here just five times a year to deadhead, weed, or clip back," she says of her maintenance regimen. "The rest of the time, the plants need to shine on their own." She repeats tough, durable varieties that have interesting color, leaf shape, and texture, adding in plenty of edibles and herbs as well as native plants to feed and shelter birds and other wildlife. The rabbits, hens, and other fowl she keeps feed on garden scraps and contribute fertilizer.

Shown here: The stone sculpture (center) is actually a pebble fountain.

Mike Jensen

Planning Your Own Patch of Green

In Carlson's backyard, the fence and arbor are so handsome, the low-maintenance plantings so lush, that the property fits seamlessly into its gracious neighborhood of older homes. You'd never guess this earth-friendly haven, with its animals and edibles, is more akin to a working farm than a typical city garden.

Shown here: Four ring-neck doves and a quail yield eggs and manure; they reside in an outdoor aviary Carlson built from salvaged shipping pallets, roof shingles, and sparrow netting.

Mike Jensen

Green-Roofing for Rabbits

Carlson built the green-roofed rabbit hutch shown here. The alfalfa hay bedding and droppings of the fluffy Angora rabbit brothers, Peaches and Mocha, are collected for fertilizer, and Carlson gathers and spins their fur into yarn. The hutch's sedum-covered roof absorbs rainwater.

Mike Jensen

Colorful Coops

Carlson also built the chicken coop, with bright red, orange, and gold trim to enliven the landscape and draw attention to their occupants. Three Buff Orpington hens (the maximum number of chickens allowed on a Seattle residential lot) are moved around in a bottomless portable pen built from salvaged cedar and hardware cloth. This way, the chickens' tasks of fertilizing and turning over the soil is distributed throughout the garden. At night, the hens return to the safety of their brightly painted coop home. All the fowl provide eggs the family eats.

Mike Jensen

Harvesting Rainwater

Though Seattle receives 36 to 38 inches of rainfall each year, summers tend to be dry. So between September and May, Carlson collects over 4,000 gallons of rainwater off her roof, storing it in three cisterns lined up against the back fence. In this way, the 950-square-foot roof provides sufficient water to keep the garden going all summer, including the lawn and vegetable beds. When it's time to water, Carlson simply attaches a garden hose or hooks up a sprinkler to a small utility pump submerged in each of the 625-gallon polypropylene storage tanks. "I've never used it all up over the summer," she says proudly of her free irrigation supply. Siting the cisterns was key, since they inevitably overflow in winter. Here, excess water runs onto a gravel area, where it gradually filters down to recharge an underground creek bed.

Mike Jensen