Imagine eschewing the grocery store for a walk through your yard, where you procure an earthly feast of fruit, berries, herbs and greens.

As you feast on your comestibles, you watch local pollinators flock to your beautiful yard that’s also planet-friendly.

It’s not a fairy tale if you live in Kelly Bull’s Stratton Meadows neighborhood in Colorado Springs, where she’s turning her neighbor’s yards into edible food forests, one plot at a time.

But she’s no green-thumbed Lone Ranger ripping out weeds and planting lavender under the cover of night; she’s enlisting her community for help.

“My goal is that my yard is a food forest where I’m growing all fruit and food, and my goal is turn my neighborhood into a food forest,” said Bull, who owns Kelly Bull Permaculture Design. “It’s a pay-it-forward situation, where someone comes to a planting party and helps and gets put on the list for future ones (free yard designs by Bull).”

The longtime horticulturist defines a food forest as an imitation of a natural forest, where you start with a canopy tree. In a food forest, this would be a fruit tree. Next is the understory, or the vegetation beneath the canopy tree, but above the forest floor. In a food forest, that might look like berry bushes, such as currants, blackberries or serviceberries. There would also be ground plants, like creeping vines, mint or other upright plants, and perennial flowers that bring in insects to pollinate the trees. Creating multiple levels of plants is the goal, Bull says.

After starting with a dry and weedy patch of earth, Bull’s own yard now features peach, apple, cherry and plum trees.

“Now it’s got tons of fruits and food and lots of wildlife – 52 different species of birds visit the yard, and it’s full of bees and beneficial insects,” she said. “It happened quickly. Just a couple of small tweaks to your yard can invite a lot of life into it.”

Through her neighborhood planting parties, Bull realized a passion for community building, and eventually accepted the role of executive director of Hey Neighbor, a nonprofit devoted to creating neighborhood communities.

She’ll give a presentation, “Food Forests: Turn Your Yard Into an Edible, Willy Wonka Wonderland,” on April 10 at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College.

“Everything I design I want to feel like I’m in Willy Wonka’s food factory – that’s the most magical place on earth,” she said. “I’m trying to create a nonfictional Willy Wonka food factory, but doing it in a forest. If you’re making the effort to plant a plant, it might as well feed you, too.”

Living the plant life

Bull didn’t grow a green thumb; she was born with one.

“I’ve loved plants since before I was able to talk,” she said. “And I want everyone else to love plants as much as I do.”

After studying horticulture at the University of Georgia, she spent time in landscaping and nursery jobs before becoming a science teacher who focused her classes on school gardens, plants and the natural world.

In 2022, she and her husband relocated to the Springs, where she began doing landscape design, specializing in ecological landscaping and ensuring designs were good for the planet.

“A lot of landscaping is not,” she said. “I’m supporting pollinators, making sure things are good water-wise, and using as many native and edible plants as possible. I’m a lazy gardener. I want to plant things and have them take care of themselves. It turns out a lot of other people are like that, too. As I started designing yards, I’d make it so if they went on vacation the landscape would still thrive without them.”

It took some time to adjust to Colorado’s environment and learn its weather patterns and microclimates. For example, you can’t plant just any old thing on the south side of your house, because it’s going to get hot, she says.

“You have to pay attention,” Bull said. “I like that intentionality. It gets you more in tune with nature.”

Her permaculture business was doing well, but Bull began meeting neighbors and was inspired to ask if she could design their yards for free. She recruited other neighbors to join planting parties, promising that in exchange, they would receive their own yard design and planting party at some point.

The first such event took place two years ago at a neighbor’s house on the corner, where 15 people got together and transformed the front yard with fruit trees, berry bushes and herbs. Since then, Bull’s gone through the transformation process with four other yards in her neighborhood.

Haley McElroy was one such lucky recipient. Last year, Bull designed her yard with a Mediterranean-style vibe, selecting all white and purple native plants, a cherry tree, an Autumn Brilliance serviceberry tree, western sand cherries, Rocky Mountain penstemon, fern bush, herbs and more.

“It’s beautiful,” McElroy said. “Everything was baby plants last summer so I’m excited to see it in the spring of this year. We got to see one yard down the road a year later, and it’s big, full and beautiful.”

Creating a food forest

– No. 1: Water is life.

The limiting factor in Colorado is water. Before you do anything, pay attention to the water on your property. Bull recommends standing in your yard with an umbrella during a rainstorm to see where the water goes.

“Most of our yards are set up to get water off them as fast as possible,” Bull said. “But we need water, and it’s tweaking that system and figuring out how to keep water on your property and hydrating your soil.”

– No. 2: Profile your yard.

Bull recommends playing the long game. Instead of observing one day in your yard, it’s better to watch your yard for an entire year to see how the sun changes angles. What might be a sunny side in winter could get hit with glaring sun in the summer. Or a sunny side in the summer could stay icy through the winter.

“When I get someone who just moved in, I tell them to slow down and observe their property for a year before they make any changes. You’ll get to know it and understand it. You make less errors that way.”

– No. 3: Right plant, right place.

After you have a handle on your water situation and sun patterns, you’ll know what plants will thrive. A hot, dry spot needs a plant that can accommodate the conditions, like a tough native plant. A spot that gets plenty of water might be where you plant your fruit tree.

“You can grow apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries,” Bull said. “All grow well if you have enough water. All my downspouts go straight to my fruit trees that need the most water.”

– A mistake people make: Lawns. People who move here from a state that gets a lot of rain get an unpleasant surprise when they attempt to cultivate a lawn in Colorado.

“That lawn is resource-intensive of water, your time and energy, and fertilizer. It’s the most difficult landscape to achieve here, and unless you’re an avid soccer player or rolling in the grass every day, you don’t get much out of it when you could get a yard full of butterflies and color.”

– Quick way to improve a yard if you’re dying to do something: Start small. Don’t do a complete overhaul immediately. Start with one fruit tree, Bull says.

“We call them guilds, where you have certain plants that grow better together than alone,” she said. “You could start with one fruit tree and put three berry bushes around the fruit tree, then perennial flowers in between the bushes. Now you have a fruit tree guild. If you have money, time and space, you could make another one and expand that way.”

Details

“Food Forests: Turn Your Yard Into an Edible, Willy Wonka Wonderland” with Kelly Bull, owner of Kelly Bull Permaculture Design, 5:30 p.m. April 10, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St., $24, $18 FAC members, includes one drink; 719-634-5581, fac.coloradocollege.edu, kellybull.com