How Chickens Came to be Garden Designers

Notice the small evergreen hedging, below, along the gravel?  Thought low hedging was done as a garden design element, in the beginning, as in at least before the era of Christ, literally.  Then, I had a client with a cutting garden.  I did the classic potager shapes, large boxwoods at all the corners, brick edging, gravel paths, but no low hedging, wanted it easy to walk into for cutting flowers.  Unfortunately, it was easy for the chickens to walk into also.  Where was the best place on the chickens 300 acre farm to scratch & kick & toss dirt onto gravel paths?  The decision to hedge-in the cutting garden beds was made and planted.  It worked, chickens don't walk into the cutting garden beds anymore.  And, we had a good laugh, realizing where the garden design conceit came from, boxing-in plantings with low hedges.



Pic, above, here.
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An odd thing about chickens and old gardens, are old garden books.  In all my years collecting old garden books, none write about chickens in the garden.  Interesting.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT