Rental houses are notorious for uninteresting, often neglected yards. But Jen Aron is bucking that trend, cultivating botanical bounty at her rental house – on a quiet street at the southern base of Mount Tabor – that most would expect from dedicated home owners rather than renters.
A few California poppies dot the sea of tight buds about to burst at the edge of the sidewalk, and behind them a diverse mix of native plants hides a rain garden and a mock orange tree with a scent that the butterflies love almost as much as Jen does. Across the yard near the driveway, a brown turkey fig tree stands in the center of an "eco-lawn," a mix of low-growing flowers that – landlords take note – are more drought-tolerant than grass and stay green longer into the summer months.
Jen, 37, teaches some of the free natural gardening workshops hosted by Metro and Oregon State University Extension Service (including one coming up on vegetable gardening June 25). She works as a landscape designer specializing in edibles, native and ornamentals and is involved with multiple garden education projects around the Portland metropolitan area.
Gardening is not just Jen's expertise; it's her passion. And that passion has earned her a pretty sweet deal on her rental house, where she lives with her husband Casey, their eight-year-old son Eligh, their black lab Benny, and Zoe the cockatiel. Her gardening here pays part of her rent. The front exudes that value, as does the small backyard, where she's growing a mix of edibles in a "keyhole garden," small circular beds that allow for maximum use of space and also give the yard a "soft" look. She and Eligh just finished building a simple teepee trellis, which will create the perfect summer spot for the boy, under the shade of scarlet runner beans.
The snap peas and strawberries are for Eligh, too, and Jen delights when he instinctively snacks on them. "Studies consistently show that kids involved with growing food eat better," Jen says. "There's nothing like it when I can send my kid out to get a beet or a few carrots."
Jen says she incorporates sustainable practices into her rental garden – from the native hedgerow to the worm bin – to "practice what I teach."
And for Jen, gardening without chemicals is imperative. "It's not just about what you put on your garden," she says, explaining that those chemicals have a lasting downstream effect. In the long run, she adds, chemicals don't keep your garden healthy. "Eliminating one pest, it's eliminating all the insects, most of which are beneficial," she says. "There's a real balance in the garden that needs to happen."
The point, Jen says, isn't to be self-sufficient. It's to connect. Jen coordinates the care of Portland City Hall's Better Together garden, which replaced the lawn with vegetables. Her favorite part: men in three-piece suits on their way to meetings stopping to talk to her, saying, "Wait, I've got to ask you about..."
"There is definitely something in people's lives that is missing, living in the city," says Jen, adding that folks get caught up working long hours and don't have the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature. Gardening, she says, allows people to slow down for a second and be inspired, even if it's just in the backyard of their rental house.