BTW that is a great way to deal with 'distractions'. In my city we have programs to encourage such gardens, I am happy to say I was first on my block but not alone anymore. Sometimes our block group has a contest to decide who wins the next install and we get together and install in a day. We share plants and labor. Our 'group' really includes 2 blocks. These gardens have been shown to slow the traffic down.
I think also being aware of safety too in an urban setting. In my parent’s neighborhood people have a lot of hell strips with bamboo and big tall shrubs. With shrubs and weeping trees from their yards encroaching on the sidewalk as well. It’s really nice during the day, but when I was a teenage girl it was scary to walk through in the dark. I used to walk down the middle of the street because that was the only way I would be able to see if there was anyone near enough to grab me.
I have corn and loads of flowers in our front yard. It made an excellent backdrop for Fall photos. My neighborhood is full of dog lovers so we put pumpkins out there and offered it up to neighbors to take seasonal puppy pics there and they've shared some of the pics with us. Makes me so happy to see. It's been a pollinator magnet, it's fed us, and it's feeding flocks of birds.
I don’t have a hell strip now but I used to when I lived in California. The city only allowed one tree, which they chose. I planted the rest of it with artichoke and herbs. I encouraged everyone who walked by to help themselves. My neighbors loved it.
I’m in the mill park neighborhood of Portland and we don’t have sidewalks yet, but I plant that strip along the street with at least a dozen zucchini plants, cheap black oil sunflowers, calendula and irises (all things that grow with little fuss). It’s a great conversation starter. People always stop when they’re walking by and I can offer them a bag full of squash, some cut flowers and chat plants. It’s been a great way to get to know my neighbors. I also find it endlessly delightful in the summer when cars slow way down or come to a stop to ogle the garden. It’s fun to share something special with people.
I live in an area of Toronto where few people do their own gardening and I am a curiosity. Last year I sheet mulched my front yard, which was 60% ‘weeds’, to develop an urban food forest. I am doing the same with the boulevard/hell strip with the intention of turning it into a community herb garden. My inspiration comes from your channel as well as a few others. This has led to many conversations with passers by. It is my hope that offering herbs to the community will create good will and possibly inspire others.
Yes! Living west of Portland, OR. I have an abundance of shade in my front and back yard, but I had a "hell strip" 15' x 30' in full sun. Three years ago I installed 4, 4' x 12' raised beds. My husband wanted in on the project and installed brick walkways between the raised beds along with a cattle panel arch between each bed. I rolled out painters paper (no glues or dyes) that would decompose under the beds and was able to build deep beds with soil and compost over the compacted area and hoping to mitigate 1 1/2 centuries of street side pollution. I also knew the garden area could be compromised at some point because of water and sewer lines under the "hell strip". This garden has grown an abundance of food, has inspired neighbors to plant gardens, and created community. I thought there would be "free ranging harvesters" but that has not been the case. I cannot encourage people enough to use this space for food production! It's an incredible gift to the neighborhood!
We don’t have a hell strip in my neighborhood, just hell HOASS. Can’t even plant anything without sending in a form and beg. Just the trees and boxwood that we all have planted years ago😫😞
I don’t have a hell strip, but I’m setting up my very first AND retirement garden at age 60, and I know to watch every video you make, no matter what it’s “about,” because I know overall every video will resonate with me deeply. You always leave us with amazing, life-changing thinking points. You’re a profound influence on my garden all the way over in Indiana.
I have a " he'll strip". I have planted the area with lilacs, roses that grow up in the lilacs. I also have plenty of flowers and some mint and a dwarf comfrey that can choke the weeds. It is a place where dogs poop and people have taken the time to even dig out plants for their own garden. It has a purpose of being a joyous and generous space. I am very grateful for the people who are responding respectfully and not letting their dogs poop without picking up the poop,and the people who are taking the whole plant are not kind and caring but I think that these actions are a compliment to my garden. I never plant things that are precious and fragile or bother me if they are damaged or taken away. I am very careful about this is a right of way and I keep it as a place where people can navigate through it easily. I also put extra plants and stuff that I have to give away on the " hell strip".
OMG! Raspberries!!! What a great idea! I am waiting on my chip drop and have plans to mulch the hell strip between my property line and the street (no sidewalk). My plan was to put in flowers like borage and calendula that reseed like crazy knowing they could/will likely get trampled when neighbors park in the hell strip. I love the idea of adding raspberries. I've already been potting up the suckers/runners from the ones along my back fence. On the front property line, I have a retaining wall and fence so a trellis is sorta already built in for the raspberries. Also, for those naysayers, even a basic mulch will help with weeds, which was the original motivation for me.
I live in a coastal community on So Cal. We are not allowed to plant food in our “stupid” strips. We also utilize that area for entering and exiting cars. Ours is bricked in and is very functional. I would really like to be allowed to have curb cuts though to collect rain water runoff so that it can be absorbed and filtered and not just run to the ocean.
I live along a busy 4 lane highway in a cold place. My hell strip gets loads of road salt and pollution. So I just have the neighbor’s landscaping crew care for it (for a small fee). The part between my house and sidewalk is just ornamentals because the pollution level is too high from all the semi trucks and vehicles. I did actually plant edible ferns there, but I’m afraid to eat them because of the pollution. Farther back I have a raspberry bush that people walking the alley could access.
We call it boulevard. Mine is full of flowers for pollinators. The few edibles that may be there are for the wildlife. We keep it about as tall as a car's hood- so you can see kids running and I keep it off of the sidewalk. It is my way to brighten the way, feed the animals and keep water from the storm sewer system.
I’ve planted two Asian pears in my hell-strip (or I might call it a verge), was a little stumped on what to put under them. Whatever I do will actually be cleaner than the grass that’s currently there, which is Bahai grass which is reaching over the sidewalk (I’m in the process of edging and sheet mulching). We’re talking about putting a little free library/seedling giveaway in the verge too.
This was interesting! We don’t have this (as far as I am aware) in the U.K. (at least nowhere that I know of). Our property line ends at the path (sidewalk) and the local councils are responsible for the rest. That said, I have seen flowers planted beneath one of the public trees in this strip on one of our roads.
Oh, interesting that the community maintains them where you are! Here, it’s up to you, but there are often regulations about what can be grown and you’re responsible for damage done to the sidewalk.
I've never heard of such a planting being the responsibility of the home owners here in Sweden either, so planting there would be guerrilla gardening. :-D
It's funny that some people said growing food in hell strips reads as "poor" I live in the SF bay area and it doesn't really designate class here. Some people grow food and some people don't.
I would not eat anything grown in a hellstrip 😜 maybe i just became picky living in the middle of the woods growing very clean stuff.. anything next to any pollution source just does not sound edible to me 🤔
I recently saw a hell strip with veggies right off a very busy road and it bothered me...even though I like the idea. I think if you live in a potentially busy hell strip area, which I do, a ground cover that attacts pollinators is prob best. I had no idea you were responsible for damage from trees in your hell strip.
I don't have a hell strip however, live in a fairly rural area and have a drainage ditch am considering arching a temporary trellis across the ditch to do climbing beans and small squash. This area gets the best summer fall sun, another idea is Jerusalem Artichokes which have beautiful flowers and can handle some rough treatment. Added benefit is can be used a visual screen from road traffic.
Unfortunately my hell strip often has a deposit of dog 🐕…droppings 😉 so I stick to a native wildflower pollination strip. Last year I had several people take photos and comment on how beautiful it was!
having a garden might make people respect the space more and maybe not poop? my mum put a roll of dog bags on a stake that said, 'please use' and honestly people use them and it's fixed the problem!
I'm glad I don't have property with a hell strip anymore, but I never even thought about doing anything other than grass. I didn't know it was really an option.
Hi Angela, neighbor south of you by a few miles, adding some salt? I live on the end of a one block street. There is a sidewalk in front of my house around the bend of the end. Just for me? & my 8 neighbors when they go for a stroll? We also have plentiful No Parking signs for no apparent reason. No bullet casings, yet. I have daffodils, rhubarb, mint, artichokes & a walnut tree in my hell strip. I want more daffs. I like the berry idea for a little hell patch between driveways.
Unfortunately I don't remember where I saw this, but apparently fruit trees are best in terms of the amount of road side pollution that ends up in the end product i.e. fruits.
I'm going to do day lillies and goldenrod. I just can't fire up the lawnmower and be bothered feeling like a pile of crap after mowing anymore. I'm so done with it !
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but in Portland at this point, if the city is putting in sidewalks in your neighborhood, the city will make you, the homeowner, pay directly for the side walk in front of your lot. My next door neighbors went through this. The city has decided to require home owners, when they make a substantial improvement, put in the sidewalk as part of the permit, inspection, and approval process. Currently my street is a patchwork of sections of sidewalk and no sidewalk stretches. I'm just thanking my lucky stars my front fence is just past the portion of my yard they will appropriate to put the sidewalk in, so at least I won't need to replace that, when I am forced to pay for installing a sidewalk. I would prefer a sidewalk built right next to the street, but the city wants to force us all to do the insanely wasteful and expensive act of moving our water meters, so they can give us all hell strips. If the sidewalk was abutting the road, the water meters would not need to be moved. I don't know how you feel about this, but I am deeply troubled and unhappy with how the city is going about putting in sidewalks. When I eventually end up with a parking strip, I will be planting filberts, which when they fall get foraged or the squirrels and jays eat them.
I’ve been hearing the warnings to be mindful of things grown near car traffic for ages - your first point, to be mindful of pollution. Which sounds reasonable. But. Could you go more into/specifics about that? Or suggest resources on the topic? I live in NYC and it seems sort of hard to avoid. What exactly do you have to be careful of? Is it only the root veg that are going to specifically accumulate pollutants? (I’ve heard that root veg are good at remediating contaminated soil but for the love of god not eating it after) and how different is it really from just breathing the air with that stuff in it that im already doing? This is a topic where I’ve heard lots of “common sense “ that sounds totally reasonable, but haven’t seen studies to back it up.
BTW that is a great way to deal with 'distractions'. In my city we have programs to encourage such gardens, I am happy to say I was first on my block but not alone anymore. Sometimes our block group has a contest to decide who wins the next install and we get together and install in a day. We share plants and labor. Our 'group' really includes 2 blocks. These gardens have been shown to slow the traffic down.
I think also being aware of safety too in an urban setting. In my parent’s neighborhood people have a lot of hell strips with bamboo and big tall shrubs. With shrubs and weeping trees from their yards encroaching on the sidewalk as well. It’s really nice during the day, but when I was a teenage girl it was scary to walk through in the dark. I used to walk down the middle of the street because that was the only way I would be able to see if there was anyone near enough to grab me.
I have corn and loads of flowers in our front yard. It made an excellent backdrop for Fall photos. My neighborhood is full of dog lovers so we put pumpkins out there and offered it up to neighbors to take seasonal puppy pics there and they've shared some of the pics with us. Makes me so happy to see. It's been a pollinator magnet, it's fed us, and it's feeding flocks of birds.
I don’t have a hell strip now but I used to when I lived in California. The city only allowed one tree, which they chose. I planted the rest of it with artichoke and herbs. I encouraged everyone who walked by to help themselves. My neighbors loved it.
I’m in the mill park neighborhood of Portland and we don’t have sidewalks yet, but I plant that strip along the street with at least a dozen zucchini plants, cheap black oil sunflowers, calendula and irises (all things that grow with little fuss). It’s a great conversation starter. People always stop when they’re walking by and I can offer them a bag full of squash, some cut flowers and chat plants. It’s been a great way to get to know my neighbors. I also find it endlessly delightful in the summer when cars slow way down or come to a stop to ogle the garden. It’s fun to share something special with people.
I live in an area of Toronto where few people do their own gardening and I am a curiosity. Last year I sheet mulched my front yard, which was 60% ‘weeds’, to develop an urban food forest. I am doing the same with the boulevard/hell strip with the intention of turning it into a community herb garden. My inspiration comes from your channel as well as a few others. This has led to many conversations with passers by. It is my hope that offering herbs to the community will create good will and possibly inspire others.
Yes! Living west of Portland, OR. I have an abundance of shade in my front and back yard, but I had a "hell strip" 15' x 30' in full sun. Three years ago I installed 4, 4' x 12' raised beds. My husband wanted in on the project and installed brick walkways between the raised beds along with a cattle panel arch between each bed. I rolled out painters paper (no glues or dyes) that would decompose under the beds and was able to build deep beds with soil and compost over the compacted area and hoping to mitigate 1 1/2 centuries of street side pollution. I also knew the garden area could be compromised at some point because of water and sewer lines under the "hell strip". This garden has grown an abundance of food, has inspired neighbors to plant gardens, and created community. I thought there would be "free ranging harvesters" but that has not been the case. I cannot encourage people enough to use this space for food production! It's an incredible gift to the neighborhood!
We don’t have a hell strip in my neighborhood, just hell HOASS. Can’t even plant anything without sending in a form and beg. Just the trees and boxwood that we all have planted years ago😫😞
I don’t have a hell strip, but I’m setting up my very first AND retirement garden at age 60, and I know to watch every video you make, no matter what it’s “about,” because I know overall every video will resonate with me deeply. You always leave us with amazing, life-changing thinking points. You’re a profound influence on my garden all the way over in Indiana.
I have a " he'll strip". I have planted the area with lilacs, roses that grow up in the lilacs. I also have plenty of flowers and some mint and a dwarf comfrey that can choke the weeds. It is a place where dogs poop and people have taken the time to even dig out plants for their own garden. It has a purpose of being a joyous and generous space. I am very grateful for the people who are responding respectfully and not letting their dogs poop without picking up the poop,and the people who are taking the whole plant are not kind and caring but I think that these actions are a compliment to my garden. I never plant things that are precious and fragile or bother me if they are damaged or taken away.
I am very careful about this is a right of way and I keep it as a place where people can navigate through it easily. I also put extra plants and stuff that I have to give away on the " hell strip".
OMG! Raspberries!!! What a great idea! I am waiting on my chip drop and have plans to mulch the hell strip between my property line and the street (no sidewalk). My plan was to put in flowers like borage and calendula that reseed like crazy knowing they could/will likely get trampled when neighbors park in the hell strip. I love the idea of adding raspberries. I've already been potting up the suckers/runners from the ones along my back fence. On the front property line, I have a retaining wall and fence so a trellis is sorta already built in for the raspberries. Also, for those naysayers, even a basic mulch will help with weeds, which was the original motivation for me.
in my experience the flowers won't reseed well if the mulch is thick. take some seeds and put them into the soil beside the plants :_)
@@KatBurnsKASHKA Thanks!
I was so confused when I heard this term on a mostly American gardening site. We call it the boulevard and some folks call it a berm. (Toronto)
I live in the US and never heard it, we usually call them "Parking strips"
@@seane6616 makes sense!
I live in a coastal community on So Cal. We are not allowed to plant food in our “stupid” strips. We also utilize that area for entering and exiting cars. Ours is bricked in and is very functional. I would really like to be allowed to have curb cuts though to collect rain water runoff so that it can be absorbed and filtered and not just run to the ocean.
I live along a busy 4 lane highway in a cold place. My hell strip gets loads of road salt and pollution. So I just have the neighbor’s landscaping crew care for it (for a small fee). The part between my house and sidewalk is just ornamentals because the pollution level is too high from all the semi trucks and vehicles. I did actually plant edible ferns there, but I’m afraid to eat them because of the pollution.
Farther back I have a raspberry bush that people walking the alley could access.
We call it boulevard. Mine is full of flowers for pollinators. The few edibles that may be there are for the wildlife. We keep it about as tall as a car's hood- so you can see kids running and I keep it off of the sidewalk. It is my way to brighten the way, feed the animals and keep water from the storm sewer system.
I’ve planted two Asian pears in my hell-strip (or I might call it a verge), was a little stumped on what to put under them. Whatever I do will actually be cleaner than the grass that’s currently there, which is Bahai grass which is reaching over the sidewalk (I’m in the process of edging and sheet mulching). We’re talking about putting a little free library/seedling giveaway in the verge too.
This was interesting! We don’t have this (as far as I am aware) in the U.K. (at least nowhere that I know of). Our property line ends at the path (sidewalk) and the local councils are responsible for the rest. That said, I have seen flowers planted beneath one of the public trees in this strip on one of our roads.
Oh, interesting that the community maintains them where you are! Here, it’s up to you, but there are often regulations about what can be grown and you’re responsible for damage done to the sidewalk.
I've never heard of such a planting being the responsibility of the home owners here in Sweden either, so planting there would be guerrilla gardening. :-D
I wasn't thinking about it( using my hell strip) until I saw this eye catching title for a video. I learned what a hell strip is as well
It's funny that some people said growing food in hell strips reads as "poor" I live in the SF bay area and it doesn't really designate class here. Some people grow food and some people don't.
I would not eat anything grown in a hellstrip 😜 maybe i just became picky living in the middle of the woods growing very clean stuff.. anything next to any pollution source just does not sound edible to me 🤔
Thank you Angela! Excellent suggestions!❤🌎✌️
I recently saw a hell strip with veggies right off a very busy road and it bothered me...even though I like the idea. I think if you live in a potentially busy hell strip area, which I do, a ground cover that attacts pollinators is prob best. I had no idea you were responsible for damage from trees in your hell strip.
I don't have a hell strip however, live in a fairly rural area and have a drainage ditch am considering arching a temporary trellis across the ditch to do climbing beans and small squash. This area gets the best summer fall sun, another idea is Jerusalem Artichokes which have beautiful flowers and can handle some rough treatment. Added benefit is can be used a visual screen from road traffic.
Amazing share dear
Unfortunately my hell strip often has a deposit of dog 🐕…droppings 😉 so I stick to a native wildflower pollination strip. Last year I had several people take photos and comment on how beautiful it was!
having a garden might make people respect the space more and maybe not poop? my mum put a roll of dog bags on a stake that said, 'please use' and honestly people use them and it's fixed the problem!
I'm glad I don't have property with a hell strip anymore, but I never even thought about doing anything other than grass. I didn't know it was really an option.
Be aware that many will use it to take their indoor dogs out to use as well! Be conscious of this for eating from it.
Hi Angela, neighbor south of you by a few miles, adding some salt? I live on the end of a one block street. There is a sidewalk in front of my house around the bend of the end. Just for me? & my 8 neighbors when they go for a stroll? We also have plentiful No Parking signs for no apparent reason. No bullet casings, yet.
I have daffodils, rhubarb, mint, artichokes & a walnut tree in my hell strip. I want more daffs. I like the berry idea for a little hell patch between driveways.
Unfortunately I don't remember where I saw this, but apparently fruit trees are best in terms of the amount of road side pollution that ends up in the end product i.e. fruits.
I was just thinking about what I could do with my hell strip : )
I'm going to do day lillies and goldenrod. I just can't fire up the lawnmower and be bothered feeling like a pile of crap after mowing anymore. I'm so done with it !
I would see about pollinators garden.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but in Portland at this point, if the city is putting in sidewalks in your neighborhood, the city will make you, the homeowner, pay directly for the side walk in front of your lot. My next door neighbors went through this. The city has decided to require home owners, when they make a substantial improvement, put in the sidewalk as part of the permit, inspection, and approval process. Currently my street is a patchwork of sections of sidewalk and no sidewalk stretches. I'm just thanking my lucky stars my front fence is just past the portion of my yard they will appropriate to put the sidewalk in, so at least I won't need to replace that, when I am forced to pay for installing a sidewalk.
I would prefer a sidewalk built right next to the street, but the city wants to force us all to do the insanely wasteful and expensive act of moving our water meters, so they can give us all hell strips. If the sidewalk was abutting the road, the water meters would not need to be moved. I don't know how you feel about this, but I am deeply troubled and unhappy with how the city is going about putting in sidewalks.
When I eventually end up with a parking strip, I will be planting filberts, which when they fall get foraged or the squirrels and jays eat them.
I’ve been hearing the warnings to be mindful of things grown near car traffic for ages - your first point, to be mindful of pollution. Which sounds reasonable. But. Could you go more into/specifics about that? Or suggest resources on the topic? I live in NYC and it seems sort of hard to avoid. What exactly do you have to be careful of? Is it only the root veg that are going to specifically accumulate pollutants? (I’ve heard that root veg are good at remediating contaminated soil but for the love of god not eating it after) and how different is it really from just breathing the air with that stuff in it that im already doing? This is a topic where I’ve heard lots of “common sense “ that sounds totally reasonable, but haven’t seen studies to back it up.
Very interesting and great ideas!
Oh personally I Looooove neighborhoods with no curbs. So romantic...(and I'm not the best driver)😬