We have two trees (a maple and a gum) in the front yard. This is the sunniest area of our property and faces west. All the area from the street to close to the trees receives 6 or more hours of sunlight. We’ve always had fescue grass (he’s a lawn maintenance owner who has a couple decades working on it to keep fescue growing) and the center bed with the trees. The patio with adjacent narrow bed and the bed near the street are three years old. When digging out coleus and vinca for our pansies, we discovered the beds are just crowded with tree roots/root hairs. My husband said tonight he just wants to put down ivy and forget about growing anything else.

I’ve been wanting to grow more food. Right now, I have most in pots on this front patio with a few things in our tiny side garden (which doesn’t receive enough sun for things like tomatoes and peppers). I’ve been hoping to grow food in the front lawn, it I realize it will have to be in raised beds because the soil is simply too consumed with tree roots and too compacted.

Concerns:

It will look ugly

The tree roots will ruin it all

Any thoughts? 😊 Any ideas of how to make it pretty, edible, and not cluttered?

You can grow food and have it look pretty. Easiest way is to plant like you would plant flowers in that bed. Tallest plants in the middle (tomatoes for example) and go down in size until you have lettuce or something small in the front. Figure out what you want to plant then find colorful varieties. Tomatoes come in many colors and there are even varieties that have a metallic sheen to them! Peppers always look great in a garden and there is lettuce that comes in different shades of green and there are some that are a burgundy color as well. Swiss chard is very colorful also. If you like kale you can plant purple kale. Cauliflower now comes in purple as well.

If you go to this thread, you will get lots more ideas from other veggie growers. Or you can start your own thread in the forum also. The thread "2017 Vegetable Gardening" in Vegetables and Fruit forum

I’m having a hard time figuring out how to make several raised beds that don’t make the front look boxy. We naturally landscape with curves, but raised beds are rectangular. The soil is just so full of roots, compacted, nutrient-deprived!

You could take railroad ties, NO they do not harm the soil or plants, and cut them so you could make an octagon , two tie high.
Then take soil and and build you lawn up to the height of the ties.
No one would see them and you would have a garden shape quite unique.

They also make landscaping blocks that you can use to make curved beds. Nothing says you have to use wood. Go to a local home improvement store and see what they have. You can go 2 or 3 high and you won't need a liner to hold the dirt in.