

Fringe benefits

Whether you've got a suburban side yard, urban gangway or just leftover land at your property's perimeter, the space between your home and your neighbor's is most likely a missed opportunity. Narrow? Yes. Tricky? Maybe. But with planning and a little assistance, that narrow piece of property can become a pleasant passage, bonus garden, or even an integral part of a sustainable landscape design.

Depending on location, the land between lots can be as narrow as 3 feet, or wider than 10. But whatever the width, the biggest challenge with this space is dealing with drainage. That is a significant problem in Bucktown and some South Side neighborhoods where many streets were raised in the middle 1800s by the city to accommodate sewer lines. While the streets were raised, the adjoining homes were not, leaving side yards and passageways below the level of the road.

"So, you're basically living in a bowl, or bathtub," says Bill Barnes.

For Barnes, a Bucktown resident who rents out the coach house behind his home, "even normal rainstorms used to put my gangway under six or more inches of water," he says. This was a real safety hazard for the tenants, says Barnes, "and overflow was seeping into my neighbor's fieldstone foundation."

Working together toward a solution, Barnes, and neighbor, Greg Raymond -- who owns Ecogardens LLC, in Chicago -- decided reworking the passageway and splitting costs down the middle would be a winning proposition for both. Tearing out the old sidewalk, Raymond installed a narrower walk with a trench drain running along the side. This now redirects water to the front yard, eliminating flooding and solving seepage issues.

Adding eco-friendly aesthetics to water solutions, many landscapers say they like to replace the ubiquitous strip of side-yard concrete with plantings and pavers that look prettier and allow water to seep into the earth. One strong caution here: "If you're removing a cement sidewalk or driveway next to your foundation, it's a very good idea to waterproof your basement," says Tony Butterworth, residential landscape designer with Christy Webber Landscapes.

Architect Anthony Hurtig also advises working with someone who understands how to use a variety of water-management systems to redirect, and collect water around your specific site.

Examples of these systems include trench drains -- long, shallow metal trenches with grates over the top -- like those used by Raymond in Bucktown; French drains, (layers of gravel or stone and a special membrane beneath soil), give water a quick place to sink away from the surface, where it can then percolate more slowly into soil lower down; rain barrels, catch basins or cisterns, collect roof water runoff so that less of it pounds down to the pavement; and flowers and plants along property edges help catch and hold water as well.

"There's not just one solution," says Hurtig, "it's one incremental step after another."

At Bruce Crown's Lincoln Park home, Butterworth integrated many of these methods to prevent water from flowing into the basement stairwell. There's nary a concrete sidewalk in sight. Instead, a path of pavers (set at a grade that sends water toward the back yard) leads side yard visitors between rows of hosta and catnip plants that soak up runoff.

But not all homeowners have water issues with their side yards. For Jeanne Sheppard of Evanston, whose house abuts two gravel alleys, a slim side yard "with low light and less than optimal soil conditions," was the bulk of the yard she had. Figuring how to better utilize the space was a question of balancing the desire for beauty with the need for functionality.

"It used to be just grass," says Sheppard. "But I needed a walkway to make it easier to access the back/side entrance from the front of the property."

Completed in phases over the last 10 years, the finished side yard has native flowers and shrubs, a brick-paved courtyard, front brick archway, back-yard water garden and a side row of arborvitae. That used to end where the neighbor's fence began. The bonus there? When the fence blew down, neighbor Judy Kulb decided to put in more arbor vitae to blend with Sheppard's landscape.

"Getting rid of the fence and adding the trees has been a nice continuation of what Jeanne started," says Kulb. "I like it better without such a severe separation between the properties," says Kulb. "I'd rather look at green foliage than a piece of wood any day!"

In Lincoln Square, a love for gardening, and a similar "no fences" attitude prompted Janna Riley and her sister to convert foot after foot of an 8-by-10-foot side yard into a garden the whole neighborhood can enjoy.

"As a gardener, you look at the yard as an extension of your house, your personality," says Riley. Years ago, she and her sister -- who has since relocated to the suburbs, started getting rid of the grass, each year putting in more shade-loving garden plants needing less than six hours of sun each day. Still growing and changing, the current side yard garden includes four kinds of hosta, astilbe, an arbor with climbing hydrangea, lady's mantle, cinnamon fern and plenty of bulbs and annuals.

For all homeowners, figuring out which plants will work best along the side of the house depends on light level, space, amount of water and soil quality.

Trish Beckjord, a landscape designer with Conservation Design Forum in Elmhurst, says improving the soil will probably be necessary because the low light/poor soil conditions that typify most narrow side yards is not a good combo. "That's especially true if you are putting in woodland plants," she says, "which do well in low light, but require well treated and composted, moist soil."

For dry "fringe" areas, such as the few feet below a roof overhang, Marcus de la fleur, also a landscape architect with the Conservation Design Forum, suggests drought-tolerant prairie plants such as butterfly weed or native prickly pear.

Tony Butterworth suggests three good plants for a very shady side strip, including Lamium "White Nancy" or "Pink Pewter," Ligularia "Desdemona" and Athyrium Pictum. His moderate shade plant picks are Astilbe (varieties), Ligularia "The Rocket" and Heuchera Citronelle.

Other than plant beds, adding ornamentation to the side of the house itself, can add color and interest. "Because it's often such a utilitarian passageway, the side yard/gangway is probably the last thing somebody budgets for or does anything with," says architect Hurtig. "This can get pretty dull for the homeowner, especially if there is a frequently used side, or back entrance."

Adding texture to the brick, installing well-designed fences to break the space up a bit, or, "Even adding murals or mosaics," can do the trick, he suggests. The 5-by8-foot botanical mosaic that artist Francine Gourguechon ( ) installed near the back of her six-flat building was added for just such a reason: "To add a little light and levity to what used to be dreary space."

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A side yard that really works

Take one clapboard house in Elmhurst, add porous pavement surrounds, a "green" roof, cistern, six rain barrels, two rain gardens and a "bioswale" strip of native grasses and you get a side yard that pulls out all the eco stops.

Instead of bouncing water off concrete sidewalks and pitched roofs to collect in dismal pools along the sides of the house, landscape architect Marcus de la fleur of Conservation Design Forum in Elmhurst, integrated all the above systems to capture, and reuse water for a more efficient, and beautiful, effect.

His Web site detailing the project is a valuable tutorial on making the most of fringe areas like side yards and gangways. See

-- Monica Rogers

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