Edible landscaping refers to using plants you can eat, such as fruits, vegetables, berry bushes, herbs, nuts, edible flowers, and ornamental plants, to create an appealing design. Edible gardens bring beauty and function to the landscape, provide unique options for the table, and have many other benefits.
Edible landscaping lends itself to any garden style and can include anywhere from 1 to 100 percent edible plants. Your choice. You can start small and replace just a few ornamentals with edibles, grow herbs in containers, or use edibles in the entire landscape. If you select your plants carefully, they can work like ornamentals: provide beauty and shade, serve as a fence or windbreak, or enhance home security. Imagine a militant hedge of blackberries and raspberries patrolling your property line.
Do you have a vegetable/herb/flower garden of raised beds somewhere on your property? Do you want to grow more edibles? Do you have a small urban lot and would like to grow edibles but have no space for a dedicated garden? Do you live in an apartment with a balcony or patio? Consider incorporating edibles into your landscape.
Why choose edible landscaping?
- You can enjoy the flavor and freshness of home-grown, fully ripe fruits and vegetables.
- It increases food security because you know where your food comes from. Not only will you be less reliant on store-bought food, but you will also be able to preserve some of your harvest to enjoy over the winter months and/or share with neighbors and friends.
- You can control the quantity and kinds of pesticides and herbicides you use on your foods.
- You can save on grocery bills.
- You can select and grow species and varieties not found in stores.
- It gets you outside to interact with the natural world and have fun.
- You can improve your health through exercise and better nutrition.
Espalier, UCANR
Considerations
Site selection/location
o Most fruits and vegetables require 6 to 8 hours of sun to produce well.
o What is your soil like? Does it need improving?
o Soil drainage. Most plants prefer well-drained soil and do not like or thrive with soggy roots.
o Is there easy access to water? Useful for watering plants.
o Fences, trellises, and arbors can make use of vertical growing space.
Design principles
o Consider texture, line, form, and color when mixing edibles and landscape plants.
o Learn about the growth habits of edibles and traditional landscape plants you are planting together. Do they have similar light and water needs? Will one shade the other?
o Consider a grouping of containers; they also work well.
Plant selection
o Select plants that you and your family will eat and enjoy.
o Select plants suitable for your growing zone that are resistant to disease and pests common in your area.
o What is the size of the plant at maturity – consider dwarf or semi-dwarf trees and smaller-sized shrubs.
o Does your plant or tree selection require a compatible pollenizer, source of pollen? Many fruit trees and blueberries need more than one cultivar to produce fruit.
o Know when to harvest. Be prepared if you have a bumper crop, including how to store or preserve it. We are all familiar with the extra-large zucchini that no one wants.
Like pink blossoms, apple trees have lovely pink blossoms.
Enjoy bright red foliage in the fall, blueberry bushes do that.
Like plants with large leaves, rhubarb has large leaves, so does artichoke.
Enjoy blue flowers, consider borage.
To get you started, here are a few suggestions for edible plants that grow in our area that you can incorporate into your landscape:
Fruit trees: Apples, Pears, Cherries, Plums
Berries: Blueberries, Raspberries, Strawberries, Huckleberries*, Salmonberries*, Currants*, Blue Elderberries* (Sambucus cerulea). Please note that red Elderberries, Sambucus racemosa, are poisonous and should not be eaten.
Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Oregano, Culinary Lavender cultivated from Lavandula angustifolia plants, Mint (mint is an aggressive spreader; consider planting in a container or using it as a ground cover)
Vegetables: Lettuce, Chard, Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Peas, Rhubarb, Artichokes
Edible Flowers: Nasturtiums, Calendula, Violets, Borage, Pansies
* Indicates native plants
There are many edibles to consider adding to your landscaping. A border of rainbow chard, a hedge of blueberries, espalier fruit trees along a fence, hanging baskets of nasturtiums, mounds of lavender, creeping thyme between your steppingstones… the possibilities are endless.
Resources:
Growing Edibles in the Landscape, https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/growing-edibles-in-the-landscape
Edible Landscaping, https://extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/extd8/files/documents/12281/ediblelandscaping.pdf
Edible Landscapes: Herbs and Flowers, https://extension.psu.edu/edible-landscapes-herbs-and-flowers
Edible Landscaping, https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/archive/hot_topics/sustainable_living/edible_landscaping.shtml
Elderberry in the kitchen, https://extension.psu.edu/elderberry-in-the-garden-and-the-kitchen
Espalier, https://marinmg.ucanr.edu/CARE/HOWTOPRUNE/Espalier/