Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise Between the Sidewalk and the Curb - Softcover

Hadden, Evelyn J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604693320 ISBN 13: 9781604693324

Publisher: Timber Pr, 2014

Synopsis

In this fresh and enchanting book, Evelyn Hadden invites you to use your gardening power to convert your “hellstrip”—the space between the street and the sidewalk—into a rewarding garden that generates smiles and celebrates nature. And you don’t need to stop there: if you have some unused ground outside the fence, down the steps, or beside the driveway, you can turn it into a pocket garden bursting with beauty and character. You’ll gain inspiration from twelve dazzling curbside gardens from coast to coast, discover what you need to know before jumping in, learn how to actually create your hellstrip garden, and become acquainted with 108 plants especially suited to curbside conditions. With just one small curbside garden, you can make your yard and neighborhood more fragrant, more lively, more peaceful, more interesting, more earth friendly, and more beautiful.

About this title

About the Author

National speaker and award-winning author Evelyn Hadden encourages property owners to convert unused, unloved lawns to more rewarding landscapes. She is a founder of lesslawn.com, a partner at the lauded and provocative blog Garden Rant, and a founding member of the National Lawn Reform Coalition.

From the Back Cover

In this fresh and enchanting book, Evelyn Hadden invites you to use your gardening power to convert your “hellstrip”—the space between the street and the sidewalk—into a rewarding garden that generates smiles and celebrates nature. And you don’t need to stop there: if you have some unused ground outside the fence, down the steps, or beside the driveway, you can turn it into a pocket garden bursting with beauty and character.
 
You’ll gain inspiration from twelve dazzling curbside gardens from coast to coast, discover what you need to know before jumping in, learn how to actually create your hellstrip garden, and become acquainted with 108 plants especially suited to curbside conditions.
 
With just one small curbside garden, you can make your yard and neighborhood more fragrant, more lively, more peaceful, more interesting, more earth friendly, and more beautiful.
 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Why Curbside Landscapes Matter
Many of us own or manage pieces of land that are part of the public landscape, a landscape that other people interact with every day. That public environment uplifts our mood or sends it plummeting, rivets us in the present moment or fails to distract us from our busyness. Attractive scenes invite us to open our senses and our hearts, while ugly or barren surroundings train us to block those sensory messages.

Yes, curbside landscapes have that much power. And by extension, we who own and manage those landscapes also have power.

I invite you to use your power, to make your own contribution to the public landscape. Convert a sparse, weed-ridden curbside lawn to smile-inducing scenery that doesn’t need much help to stay healthy. Outside the fence, down the steps, or beside the driveway, incorporate ignored and deplored bits of land into the rest of your garden, or help them shine as stand-alone pocket gardens that brighten the routes of commuters.
 
You’ll add curb appeal, and you’ll also improve the daily life of your neighborhood and its denizens. The gifts of a curbside garden are disproportionately large. Natural scenes, even minutely glimpsed in passing, distract us from worry and interrupt negative psychological cycles. Garden fragments purify and freshen air, absorb and filter water, and foster biodiversity with its associated services and benefits, not to mention lowering crime and raising property values.

With just one garden, you can make living where you live—and visiting too—more fragrant, more lively, more peaceful, more interesting, more earth friendly, and more appealing.
 
What Are Curbside Gardens?
Curbside locations are the public faces of places. Though they are the last areas we may think to beautify, they provide the first glimpses of what to expect inside a building, through a gate, or across a threshold. They may be the places most used by wildlife passing through our properties, and the places where runoff, litter, and human visitors are apt to loiter. These tough environments don’t often support healthy lawns, but they can host thriving gardens that dramatically improve their surroundings.

Parking strips (the piece of land between a street and a public sidewalk, also known as a tree park, boulevard, verge, hellstrip, meridian, planting strip, or inferno strip) make promising spots for curbside gardens. So do front yards that are simply one outdoor room from curbside to front door. Although the most challenging area of such a front yard may be located alongside the street, driveway, or public walk, the gardener will likely want to design the entire room as a whole, not just one edge of it.

Similar challenges and opportunities exist for fragments of land languishing alongside driveways and buildings and in alleys, parking lots, roundabouts, and medians. Some of these places may be publicly owned or have public easements or utilities running through them, posing additional challenges and perhaps limiting the types of plants and structures that can be added. Regulations are most often set by the city but can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Timber Pr
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1604693320
• ISBN 13: 9781604693324
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296