How I Design my Urban Permaculture Garden for High-density 🌿 extended walk-through/tour

Join me in the garden to see how I design my urban permaculture garden for high-density. Extended walk-through and garden tour with tips and strategies to grow more variety of food in an urban permaculture garden.

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It’s no secret that if you have watched any of my videos that I like to grow high-density gardens and now have over 200 types of fruit trees and edible plants here in the suburbs. Today I want to share my exact design strategy and method to my madness because, surprisingly, there is one….

These are my top tips and strategies for designing a garden that you can harvest food from all year round, even in a small space.

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► More about me & my edible gardens:

🌱 I am a Kiwi 🥝
🌱 Located in Perth, Australia
🌱 Zone 10b ish
🌱 720sqm urban property
🌱 Sandy-based soil
🌱 Hot, dry climate
🌱 Permaculture Practices
🌱 Fruit tree collector
🌱 Creating long-term sustainable gardens

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and create those little microclimates within my garden. This is my front privacy hedge is going to be a game changer. I wish I’d done it sooner. I’m still not doing enough of it where I’m just taking up time and space so that it can grow to start producing some shade for the afternoon. Oh my gosh, you guys. I’m a full-on bird watcher at the moment. Like look at the size of this. It’s huge. Hi everyone. Welcome back to my garden. So today we’re going to go through some of my design strategies around how I get high density in a suburban garden. So when I say my garden is high density, I mean I have over 200 different types of fruit trees and edible plants in my suburban block. And it may look like I’m just out here cramming things in random places, which sometimes it is, but I also do have a strategy. So, I want to share that with you. So, that may help you if you want to add more fruit trees into your garden and you’re just not sure about where to put them. Because choosing where to put fruit trees is a really hard decision and something that I still struggle with. But these tips are really going to help you with your design process and figuring out where will be a good spot for that fruit tree or that plant in the garden. If you’re new here, hi. I’m Holly and I am gardening in Perth, Australia. And I’ve been having a lot of questions on my videos about what my climate is like, so I always pop that in the description. But it is a hot, dry climate here in Perth. And it’s about a zone 10b. One of the main things is that I plant my big long-term um crops as far away as I can from each other as possible. And you might be thinking, all my trees are my main crop. But what I’ve come to figure out is my favorite crops, the things that like if I could only have a few of these trees in my garden, which ones need the most space, the most sunlight, um, and give me the best crops. So, for me, that’s going to be my mangoes and my avocados. So, I don’t plant my mangoes and my avocados right next to each other. I space them out as much as I can and that way as they grow and get bigger, they have the space to develop. So this corner here used to be my lemon tree, but I’ve now replaced that with an avocado. So avocados are going to grow quite big and need a decent amount of space. So I’m not going to plant another one right next to it or a mango right next to it. So I’ve spaced them out as much as I can with the space I have available. No, it’s not ideal spacing, but I’m just working with what I’ve got. And so next to that we have the feed joer and I’ve got two of them sandwiched. It’s sandwiched in the middle here. These feed joers can easily be cut back to make room for my avocado. I also have quite a few of them. So if I have to remove this one to make space then in the future then that’s totally fine. And so my other avocado is further down the line here as far away as I could get it as possible. And that is my pinkton. So, this one is more of a smaller avocado tree, a semi- dwarf avocado tree, and it’s going to grow and take up this space. I’ve also pruned it really low so that I can keep it close to the ground and I can prune it and get fruit at a smaller height rather than this being like the trunk all the way up and then the tree above it. So, nice and low and bushy to maximize the amount of fruit on a small tree. Look, my Pinkutin avocado is about to start flowering soon. The camera was getting heavy to hold. So, I’ve done a lot of edits in this back food forest style garden. As you would have been able to see from my previous videos, it used to be really lush and you couldn’t see the fence. But over time, I just decided some trees weren’t working for me. They were more of a short-term crop and I wanted to adjust it. So, we’ve made a lot of changes um and it’s starting to really fill out and come together. So, I’ve got my bigger long-term crops as far away as I can from each other, but they might take they might take quite a long time to fruit. So, I I might not be picking avocados for a few years off that. And while I wait for that, I have absolutely filled the gaps. So, another one of my design techniques or strategies is to add in some deciduous fruit trees. So you can barely even even see it here in the in the back, but this is my pomegranate and it’s completely lost its leaves for winter. So it’s not shading out anything. It’s just a dead looking tree in the background there. But in summer, it’s going to have a lot of leaves. And so I have deciduous fruit trees dotted all around my garden to be able to grow more fruit, but not necessarily taking up or stealing sunlight from anyone. So I can add in some deciduous fruit trees a little bit closer than I normally would to sneak in a few extra fruit trees. So this is another example of my deciduous fruit trees. This is a nashi pear. And if this was covered in leaves right now, like if this was a orange tree, it would block a lot of light into my veggie patch and the veggies just wouldn’t grow very well over winter. But because it’s basically a dead looking stick, all the light is getting in to my veggie patch. But in summer when the sun is basically straight above, the veggie patch is definitely going to get plenty of sunlight, but so is this tree. So, no one’s missing out. I’ve also got this on the other end of the garden bed so that it can grow to start producing some shade for the afternoon because here in Perth, the afternoon sun is absolutely killer. I want to do as much as I can to try and prevent my veggie garden from getting that hot afternoon sun. So, I’ve got um some deciduous fruit trees dotted around. And I’ve also got the grapes growing up the arbor to provide some extra shade for the summer months. Another way that I can add in extra fruit trees is to utilize short-lived fruit trees. Um these are things that grow really fast, start producing fruit, but they don’t have a long lifespan or it’s really easy to move them, take cutings, plant seeds from them. So, these are things like your bananas. So, I can grow bananas, start getting a crop, and then if the time comes that my avocado or my mango is taking up that space and needing more light or needing more space, I can cut that down, dig up some of the pups, move them to other area of my garden, and create more space. Other plants are things like papayas, um my mulbury, that was a short-term crop that I used here to create a lot of shade to let other things get established. And then I ended up taking it out and wanting to use that space for something else. But I took cutings easily, so I still have that um in cutting form, so I can pop that in other areas of my garden if I want to. Papayas, they grow so easily from seed. You can al also utilize things like tamarillo or Cape gooseberry. um passion fruit. These grow quickly, start producing, and then you can easily propagate them and move them to other parts of the garden. And this is a really, really useful technique if you are short on space, but you really want to cram a lot of things in and you want to start getting food quickly because if you just plant, you know, mango, avocado, and you give them enough space and you wait until they’re starting to really produce, you could be waiting 5 years. And in that 5 years, you could have been eating bananas, papayas, tamarillos, cape gooseberries, chilies, all these different things while we were waiting for that tree to grow. So, next up is I utilize sort of the middle layer of uh my gardens. So, this is where the trunks of my trees are that, you know, don’t need that space. And a lot of these lowerlying plants don’t need as much sunlight. So, it’s okay that it’s a bit more shady down here. So that’s things like I’ve got some guava. So think things like berries, shrubs, smaller middle layer stuff. I’ve even got this super dwarf peach down here. And it’s actually just starting to produce a few little flowers. Oh no, there’s a caterpillar. He’s eating the flowers, so we can’t have that. So again, this is a deciduous plant. It’s going to lose its leaves in winter, but in summer when the sun is directly above, the sun is going to come in and it’s going to get enough sunlight so I can start getting and harvesting peaches down here at a really low level. Um, while I utilize the space above to grow pomegranates, guavas, fijas, bananas, I’ve also got down here a yellow patanka tuba. Again, that’s a really low bushy shrub that’s going to start producing um edible fruits in this lower middle layer. So, another one that I’ve got here in this middle layer is my kumquat. And you can see it’s got a lot of fruit on a small plant, but it’s probably about a meter tall with all of this fruit on it. So, that’s another really good one for um that you can prune back really easily and keep it in this middle layer to grow things above it um and also below it. Then we do have our lower ground covers. So I’ve got things like notorium, sweet potato, um society garlic, herbs, those sort of things that grow really low to the ground and utilize that space while protecting the soil. And I’ve got a whole video on edible ground covers. So I’ll link that for you. I won’t go into too much detail. Now, this is another great way to utilize that space to grow more varieties and get more food. So this is my front privacy hedge. And so all of these trees are evergreen, so they have leaves all year round to provide that privacy. And one day it’ll be all filled in. Um, but because the sun sets over there, this isn’t blocking the sun from any part of my garden. It’s it’s also not providing much shade either. So it’s just a standalone sort of garden. Um, and I again have all the different layers as well as I’ve popped in now some of these mangoes. So eventually some of these trees will get pruned back and moved or removed to make room for the mangoes. But things like this lime tree, limes are actually more of an understory, more of a subtropical tree like a lot more shade than other citrus. So the fact that I’ve got other trees here that are going to grow and give some shade to this tree is actually only going to benefit this lime tree. Oh, this leaves in the way. Growing mulch and utilizing space, um, temporary space that is not needed at the moment to grow more mulch is going to be a game changer. I wish I’d done it sooner. I’m still not doing enough of it. So, I’m going to be doing more of it. I’m going to be repopulating these plants to other areas of my garden. Eventually, I’d love to be chopping these down and putting them in the pathways to further add more nutrition to the plants. But while things like this um custard apple don’t need the space, I may as well plant things that I can protect it from the wind, protect it from the cold, and then chop them down and feed the soil. So, mulch plants are definitely key. And I do have a video on that, so I will share that for you. And then under that as well, I’ve got my ground covers. So, down here, I have got my New Zealand spinach. And I don’t care if I stand on it, honestly. It’s just I come in here and pick off bits of it as well and throw it down for mulch if I need space. I just take them off, chop and drop them down for mulch there as well. Also, this is pretty much in my face. So, let’s cut that off as well. Pigeon pee. So, these are going to get a lot thicker. There’s going to get way more of these during the warmer months. So, the garden is going to look a lot more lush in a few months, especially when things like these peaches have leaves. These custard apples have leaves. Um, it’s going to be a lot more wild and hard to see. So, I thought it’d be a good time to show you sort of where things are placed and how I’m structuring my garden design. And although this does look a little chaotic at the moment, this there are things in here that are temporary. Like we’ve got Queensland arrowroot, which I use as my mulch plants. Pigeon pee. Again, this is going to grow up and give me some shade, but eventually I can cut this out. And because it grows really well from seed, I can move it to other areas, giving space in here for my mango. Over here, I’ve got my Linda avocado. So, eventually, this is going to be one of my main crops. So, we’ve got my Linda avocado getting really big. And once that gets too big, it’ll block the sun from this mandarin, which I’m not a fan of. I actually only got that cuz I asked my partner what tree he wanted and he said mandarin, and he doesn’t even eat them. So, no one really loves the mandarin. And I was going to top work it and put other types of um citrus on there, which I probably still will do. But eventually this avocado is going to just take up the space anyway. So there’s no real issues there. We’ve got more deciduous trees in here. I’ve got pomegranate. Um that’s my av another avocado. I’ve got these native trees in here as well. These are to help me grow really quick shade and protection because native trees grow really well in their native climate. I’m utilizing those. So I’ve got two different types of hakeas. Another one here. So eventually these can come out as well when the mango and the avocado need the space. I’ve also got another deciduous Louisa plum in here. So again, not taking up any of that sunlight, but it will give me a bit of wind protection in summer for the avocado and the mango. Bananas, which are one of my short-term crops. Eventually those will come out. We’ve got the custard apple. This is another custard apple. Um, they do usually lose their leaves in winter, but this one hasn’t. So, it might be quite protected down in here, so not really getting too much of the cold wind or temperatures because it’s got all of that protection around it. We’ve got the peach, and this is my blood peach, which I’m really excited about. We have these a lot in New Zealand, so not something you commonly see here. And then behind it we’ve got guava blood orange a loquat seedling. So not sure wasn’t intending on having that but um I just popped it in and it’s taken off my Linda avocado. So like I said that will take up this space here eventually. More feed joers in my edible hitch privacy hitch. We’ve got another custard apple down here. We’ve got a plum. And this is my multig grafted plum. It’s got about five different types of plums on it, which I wrote on here that have now disappeared, but I do have them noted down so I know which is which. We’ve got more pigeon pee. And like I said, produces seeds so easily. So I can sprinkle those and cut that out. On the end here, another deciduous plum tree. And I’ve multigrafted on an apricot. So we’ve got apricot and plum on this um tree here, which will hopefully give me a bit of shade in summer. And down here, which I have been having to like cut back this monster of a um remno that I grew. It’s from last winter and it’s got like so many different heads on it. So this is the other nashi pear. So once this starts leafing out, I’ll cut this back more. But nashi pair up here to provide some afternoon shade for the garden. This is another one of the super dwarf. This is a super dwarf nectarine. And it’s starting to flower as well. And because that’s super dwarf, it’s only going to get to like a meter and a half. So, it’s not going to affect the veggie patch either. So much has been growing in the veggie patch since we last did a video. I probably could do an update already. So once I’ve got in my main long-term crops, also my deciduous fruit trees, my short-term crops, my middle layer crops, my ground covers, then I sprinkle in if some annuals, some edible flowers. Of course, all my gardens have to have edible flowers. It attracts the birds and the bees as well as all the beneficial insects that are going to help not only pollinate my fruit but also keep those bad pests at bay. I think it’s also really important to figure out what the fruit tree loves. So if you are wanting to add something to your garden like an apricot or a banana, have a look at that tree and make sure you figure out what it likes and what it dislikes. So for example, lemons love full sun, but limes don’t really love the hot hot full sun. they’d prefer a little bit more shade. So that can just help you determine where to put things. And things like apricots, they lose their leaves over the winter, so they don’t need winter sun. So you may have an area of your garden that gets not much sun in winter, but in summer it does. Then you could pop in something like an apricot or a deciduous fruit tree in that area. So it’s all about working with what the tree likes. And so whenever I want to add something to my garden, the first thing I do is research and figure out what that tree likes, what it dislikes. Things like avocados, a lot of the tropicals, they don’t like wind. So what can I plant in front of it to block the wind or where can I put it somewhere sheltered um and create those little microclimates within my garden? So a lot of my tropical trees are over over there behind all of this garden. So it does give them a little bit more shelter from that wind and from the cold temperatures. Another strategy that I’m utilizing and it’s taking me a lot of time. So if you are a beginner gardener, don’t stress on this, but it is something that you can also add into your garden design plan for future is grafting fruit trees. So you may not be able to do it now, but it’s something you can easily learn. I learned from just watching YouTube videos and um talking to other people that could do it and then just giving it a go with things that weren’t high value. So, I wasn’t worried about killing them. Like, if I wanted to graft a branch onto one of my trees, if it didn’t work, it’s just didn’t work and I can prune it off. No real loss. But being able to graft fruit trees means that I can add more varieties in and not necessarily have a whole other plant. So, I have qu like one plum tree down there that’s got six five or six different different types of plums on it. If there’s apple trees that you really love and you’d love to have like these five different apples, but you don’t have room for five apple trees, maybe just pick your two favorites because apples do need pollinator pairs. Pick two apples that go together that will pollinate each other and then down the track you can always graft onto them and add more varieties. So, it’s a really good one if you are in a small space and you just want more variety and not huge abundance. People often say to me, you must have thousands of, you know, oranges and fruit that you can share. And at the moment, I don’t have huge amounts because I keep my trees small uh to fit in more variety. So, variety is key for me. I don’t need to have a thousand oranges. I would love to have, you know, oranges to eat, but I’d also love peers to eat, peaches to eat, apricots to eat, feed jaws to eat. I want all different varieties. And that’s also going to extend my growing season and allow me to grow fruit for the whole year. And I do still have very lean moments in the garden. Like right now, the end of winter and spring is something that I’m going to work on. Seeing what other fruit trees I can get to start producing fruit at this time because this isn’t I mean, I’ve still got mandarins, lemonades, and as my trees mature, they’ll hold the fruit for longer because I’ll have more fruit and it’ll be be able to be spaced out a bit. But it’s all a work in progress and it’s definitely an experiment. Don’t be afraid to just try new things, experiment, grow things from seed. Um, trial out mulch plants, trial out grafting, just have fun with it. I’ve also got things like radishes popping up down here. I’ve got a um seed growing Brazilian cherry that I just chucked in there. So, I’m also just chucking in random seeds and things and just using that space to grow while I have all this light and this space because eventually I can go in and chop it all down. And if I’m growing things from seed and I’m growing things from cutings and repopulating from my own garden, then it’s no real loss. If I’m if I was paying, you know, $80, $200 a tree and I’m just coming in here and telling you to cut them all down, that’s not what I’m doing. Yeah. I grew this from a seed. I grew this from a seed. I grew this from a seed. Um, I’ve got a custard apple seed in here. So some things I have spent money on like my starf fruit, my sour soap, my lime tree, my fija tree, but all in the gaps where I’m just taking up time and space are things that I’ve grown from seed and from cutting. So it’s no real loss if I do go in and chop those out. Like this guy, I’ve already cut it off with the weed eater, so it’s growing on a really weird angle. And I don’t know if that’s going to stay there because I kind of want to plant something else in this space. I’ve already run out of room. But um yeah, for now we’ll see. I forget that I plant these and they just pop up and like every year there’s more and more of them and they add so much color to the garden. But the main reason that I planted these junkwalls is actually because they remind me of my childhood. I grew up next to a junk wall farm. So, this smell is very familiar to me. Um, and I’ve got photos of me like as a kid running through the fields of junk walls. So, it’s a little touch of home for me. And I love that a lot of my fruit trees are nostalgic. Um, and I love adding them into my garden design to make it feel like a little bit of home because I am so far from home here in Perth. um coming from a small town in New Zealand. So, let’s pick a few of these to take into the house. I’ve been adding in more flowers lately because I do want to be able to have more cut flowers in the house. They’re like little sunflowers for winter. I love them. Let’s pick this giant mandarin. Because this tray produced so many fruits last year, I found it didn’t produce that many this year. A lot of my fruit trees are doing that. that they have like an on year and an off year. So, because it didn’t have that many fruit on it, the fruit are way bigger. Like, this is a giant, if I can get it off, an actual giant mandarin. So, this is the Hixon mandarin. Um, and it does have some seeds. So, again, that’s probably why it’s not my favorite fruit tree, but I prefer an orange to a mandarin, really. Look at that. Look at that. That’s huge. Keep. And I keep these little bags and I’ll reuse them um very soon actually for the summer fruit. All right, let’s pick this. Oh my god. Does smell good. Like look at the size of this. It’s huge. It smells so so good. Maybe it is getting another chance to stick around. Massive mandarin. It is easy peel. So that is one good thing about these. The skin is easy to peel off and enjoy. And of course my lemonade. You would have seen that in my previous video. Um this is one of my favorite fruits. Oh, that smells so good. So, these are hanging on for quite a long time. Um, and it is covered in flowers. So, really should be harvesting these to let all the energy go into the flowers for next season. But this one had a weird double season. So, it flowered twice. So, I’m getting two different sets of fruit. Oh my god, I can’t wait to eat this. My mouth is watering. People thought that I was like tricking about this being sweet and thinking I was just eating a lemon. It’s definitely my favorite is not getting cut out. That’s for sure. Oh, there’s a little bird. I don’t know if you can see him. Hey guy. Oh my gosh, you guys. I’m a full-on bird watcher at the moment. I’m obsessed with the birds. And there’s so many little birds in my garden. They come in and eat and dart and eat all the little bugs as well as um the nectar on a lot of the plants. Another part of my garden design has been incorporating more wildlife um elements into the garden. So, with my bird bath, with my wildlife pond with the frogs, I’ve also got like little um containers for the bees, water for the bees throughout the garden as well. So, I’d love to keep adding more sort of design elements like that that encourage the birds and wildlife to my garden. I also do need to harvest these kumquats. Um, but until I figure out what I’m going to do with them, I don’t really know. We’ve made jam. Oh, they are sour. So, kumcots are really, really unusual. Just like the lemonade, they’re not something you expect. The skin is sweet, but the inside is super sour. So, I made jam with these before, but I wanted to try something different, and I haven’t really put the effort into figuring out what that is, so they’ve just stayed on the tree. Um, and you can keep citrus on the tree for a lot longer. Like if I was to pick these, I would need to use them within a few days. Whereas like on the tree, I can leave them for weeks. But we do have more rain coming, so I don’t think these are going to be able to last on the tree too much longer. I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do with them. So let me know in the comments what should I make with the kumquats cuz they’re too sour for me to just eat fresh all of these. And another one of my strategies which you would have seen in my previous video is growing vertically. So that’s a util that’s a whole other space that you can utilize to grow food. Um and even that can be a short-term thing. So once my avocado and other fruit trees if my relinia survives that would be incredible. Um then this passion fruit may no longer be here. But for now, I’m harvesting passion fruit and utilizing this vertical space and utilizing pots and containers. That’s another great way to grow fruit and grow trees temporary or longterm in pots and containers. I’ve got like a tiered system here so I can have them raised up. So, for me, some of these plants are going to make it out into the garden um when I can find room or create new new gardens and new spaces. Also, a lot of them are for me to trial practice grafting. I’ve grown avocados from seed, mangoes from seed, and so I will practice grafting those when I can. I’ve got sapadillas from seed. Um, I’ve got my blueberries in containers cuz they do grow really well in containers, so I may as well utilize the space to grow blueberries. And you’ve probably seen my fish tank greenhouse. This is another way that I grow fruit seeds. So, I’ve got custard apple. Um, that’s from my blood orange, pomegranate, kiwi fruit. This one’s kiwi fruit. It’s the gold kiwi fruit. It’s asleep for winter. So, then I’ve got some mango seedlings over here, and my japot carba. So, that is a way that I grow things from seed. And then I can practice grafting when I prune my mango trees and avocado trees from the garden. And I will link my video for my strategy on my raised garden beds because I do have one for that on how I grow so much in a small space in terms of my high density strategy for my annuals. So, I will link that for