We had the joy of stepping into the garden of one of our own, Roxy Drew, for a thoughtful conversation about her journey with permaculture. She welcomed us in to explore, ask questions, and see firsthand how her space has evolved over time. In the interview below, Roxy shares how she got started, the lessons she’s learned around water management, and advice for anyone ready to reimagine their own yard. Her reflections offer a beautiful reminder that creating your dream landscape takes patience, curiosity, and a whole lot of grace.
When did you start designing, encouraging, and entering into a relationship with your landscape?
My background is Public Health, Health Promotion and Behavior, so naturally I had dreams of having an all edible and productive garden where our family and community could come and play, learn, and harvest organic fruit and vegetables. However, like many Atlantans, I dealt with major stormwater management issues. My backyard slopes pretty significantly, with the lower portion at the bottom of a bowl, so we get water coming from all of our neighbors’. I found out the hard way that I first had to resolve those water issues before I could plant my peaches and plum trees. I also had a fair amount of invasive species in the backyard and really infertile ground (we think portions of our backyard were previously an alleyway- so stone, pollution, and compaction were big issues).
We decided to work like nature, for nature, and buy 2 sweet baby goats who would clear the invasives for us, all while fertilizing our soil. We also partnered with our local tree companies for free chip drops and sheet mulched the areas once the goats had cleared it. I think we have had 10 Mack truck deliveries of mulch over the past 6 years. In addition to the goats, we had bunnies, ducks and chickens – all of which helped to compost kitchen and yard waste, foster fertile soil, supply eggs for eating and sharing with our neighbors, and a great learning opportunity for our neighboring city kids to experience a tiny bit of farm life.
Can you walk us through one of your favorite areas of your landscape?
One of my favorite areas of my backyard is our wildlife pond. It was just an old plastic insert that someone was throwing away, but had no holes or damage to it. I dug it into the ground, then used recycled concrete and stone that existed onsite and from our basement renovation to build a dry-stacked retaining wall and edge around the pond insert. The dry stack stone provides protection for insects to seek refuge among, habitat for salamanders to live under, and w no arm stone for lizards to bask above. I then filled it with water + native aquatic plants. I added stones inside the pond, so that wildlife can easily get in and out of the pond, bees can perch and sip water, and to prop other pots on top so I can grow a diversity of plants like pitcher plants. It becomes the center of our backyard, the watering hole if you will. You might find the dog lapping up water or cooling off from the summer heat, kids trying to catch lizards, butterflies and hummingbirds visiting the flowers, and end your day listening to the orchestra of summer frogs.
In addition to this wildlife pond, we have bird baths throughout the backyard, a steel looking glass pond and what we call the “Garden Soaking Tub”, which is a metal water trough that humans enjoy a nice cold dunk into! All of these features add life and a sense of calm to the garden, but also are part of managing our mosquitos naturally.
What about those mosquitoes?
They are all standing water, which does invite mosquitoes in. We use this to our advantage and starting in March, we put mosquito dunks in each of them so the first mosquitoes of the season will come to lay eggs in the water, and be unable to continue their lifecycle. Since implementing this natural process, we have seen a great decrease in mosquitoes in our backyard and can enjoy a pretty much mosquito-free yard until July. Given that we’re in the south, we do still get them in late summer, but we just cover up, bring out the citronella coils, and use fans, when we’re not inside of our screened in porch.
How do you manage water?
We recently installed a permeable driveway and infiltration steps, leading down the slope into our backyard. We then have a dry creek bed pathway that helps to redirect the water and decrease erosion. We terraced the backyard and built in raised beds on the contour of the slope to receive and utilize the water. The plants along the hillside help to hold in the hillside and slow the water, then the plants at the bottom of the slope are mostly wetland plants- river oats, paw-paws, golden ragwort, mountain mint, bald cypress, virginia sweetspire, ferns and sedges. The plants soak up the water and in turn provide fruit, seeds, nectar source, and habitat for pollinators and wildlife.
What’s your hope for the future of this space—or urban permaculture in general?
I am constantly learning in and from my garden- that’s the best part of working with nature. It’s not static- it’s always growing and changing. Plants that I once found were a total nuisance (looking at you violets!), I then witnessed being the host plants to their native caterpillars, which then turned into the pollinators for my garden or food for our lovely backyard birds. The less I tried to control my garden and allowed the natural processes to take place, the more abundant and alive it became.
This all seems expensive, how do you manage the cost?
It doesn’t all have to happen at once. When we bought our house, I didn’t have a lot of extra funds to work with so it made me look at the materials we did have a little differently. I also looked to my community for free wood chips and plant swaps. I then observed our land before interacting and have made many iterative design changes. I also prioritized what I could accomplish or budget for in the first year, 3 years, 5 years, etc. Each year, I also evaluate what niche is not being filled and help to foster that- am I missing a fall bloom, evergreen shrubs for winter habitat, thinking through a way of recycling a resource (i.e. pruning grape vines + making holiday wreaths with friends).
Any advice for people starting out?
My advice would be to allow for time: give time to observe before interacting, give time for the plants to grow in, give time to appreciate the little things in your garden and give time to appreciate all the hard work that you and many other people put in your garden space. There’s so much to be proud of and enjoy along the way!
What do you hope people learn in the process of creating a regenerative garden?
My hope for the future is that more people can look at their gardens and dream of how their garden can be part of our ecosystem instead of degrading it. People always comment on what a beautiful garden it is as they walk by, and that opens up the conversation to how we don’t use chemicals, how it provides habitat, how I know each plant and each critter that visits it. The relationship and intimacy that you can have with your garden + nature can be so contagious. If we all start thinking differently about how we design, maintain and use our outdoor space, we can make a profound difference in our world!
