St. Johns River food forest
Our client Ru has an amazing house on the river and an amazing landscape to match. The only thing missing was food! Growing food to be more specific. Our task was to create a top notch food forest that could exist along side a beautiful, established landscape and stunning views of the St John’s River. And one more caveat — the whole design needed to be built on the side of a steep hill.
Our client’s house and existing landscaping is modern and clean so we chose a design that would fit that vibe while utilising every square inch of available space. We created 3 large terraces by building retaining walls from charred cedar timbers. These terraces were filled with custom built (by Main Made in Atlantic Beach) COR-TEN steel planters. The terraces were finished with compacted limestone which matched the travertine featured throughout the existing landscape. The crushed limestone, charred cedar and COR-TEN steel are all natural materials that evolve over time creating an ever maturing garden space.
This space is all about food. There is a lot of space and therefore the maintenance involved with growing food is dependent on how much food you want to grow! We anchored the terraces with fruit trees and perennial shrubs like blueberries. These plants will develop deep roots which will actually help strengthen the structure of the terraces. The remaining space is filled with seasonal vegetables and herbs. The entire yard is covered by an amazing irrigation system which helps keep the boxes pumping out produce.
This garden is custom built from the ground up. Just like built in bookshelves, the deliberate, permanent construction of a food garden as part of a formal landscape fits perfectly. This garden, being nestled along the river, is seen from several different vantage points and we cannot be happier with how it performs and looks. This project will always be near and dear to my heart and being able to take care of it on a regular basis is simply an honor!
You can view more images of our work here! All images were taken on 35mm and 120 film by our in house photographer Alex and developed and scanned by our beloved film lab in Oregon, PhotoVision lab.
