How to Blend Edibles Into Your Ornamental Landscape

Make your garden do double duty! By incorporating veggies, herbs and fruit into your ornamental landscape.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Moderately to mostly sunny spot
• Decent soil
• Creativity
• Daring to shock your friends and neighbors!

1. 
    
   Beautiful Lettuce foliage adds instant impact and yummy goodness!

   First you will need to decide what types of vegetables, fruits and herbs you would like to grow. Many nurseries and Garden Centers will stock a wide variety to choose from.
   Selection is going to vary by season. Early in the year you will find great bare root stocks of berries, onions, garlic, horseradish, rhubarb, asparagus, fruit trees and shrubs. Also, seeds will become available as well. Later in the season you will have pack or 4" starts to choose from in an abundance of varieties.
   Any onion family plant has pretty and edible flowers, chives are great too. And Rhubarb looks like a spectacular tropical plant with those large leaves.

2. 
    
   Ugly nursery pots that need to be recycled into a second life.

   Match your plant choices to your garden location. Sunshine is key here. The more consistent sun you have through an 8 hour period, the more your garden can produce.
   In my front yard garden, I have made use of the reflective heat that I get off of the sidewalk- or what I refer to as "the surface of the sun!"
   This allows me to grow great herbs and the corn that was in the photo above.
   If any of your plants need afternoon shade, such as a lettuce, place it where a shrub or other plant will shade it for you.
   If your plant of choice needs extra water, placing near a lawn edge or bottom of a slope that drains water down would be helpful.
   One really excellent and easy way to site your edibles is to put them in containers either on the deck or patio where you can follow the sun or set them directly into the mixed ornamental border where no one will see your pot. The other huge benefit to planting in pots is control over your soil and moisture conditions. What a great use for ugly nursery pots!
   Vegetables like Squash and Zucchini will look beautiful winding through shrubs and flowering perennials. Plus you have large exotic looking leaves and other flowers will attract pollinating insects.

3. 
    
   Here you can see Petunia, with Red Corn and Tri-Color Sage next to a Euphorbia at the base of a Jap. Maple.

   Be creative above all. My neighbors LOVED the corn in the front yard mixed in the bed. All the kids would get a kick out of seeing them grow taller and taller every day.
   Herbs can add huge amounts of beauty, bloom and foliage. Tuck them in anywhere you have space. I particularly like Tri-Color Sage, Rosemary, Lavender, Calendula, Nasturtium, many types of Basil have lovely purple leaves. Lettuces can be gorgeous if you use red leaved varieties against the green leaf types. Purple cabbage and Swiss Chard are stunning through Fall. Mix it up with annuals too! The more the merrier!

Tips & Warnings

• Give some thought to how you will handle any pest problems that may arise, such as slugs or aphids. You will want to have an organic plan of attack. I use Diatomaceous Earth and/or a Pet Safe slug bait.
• Don't forget the edible flowers too! Viola and Nasturtiums are great in salads.
• Books to look for: Ros Creasey's "Edible landscape" and Cathy Wilkinson Barash "Edible Flowers"
• Beware of any potential lawn chemicals that could run off into your edibles. There are way too many great organic methods available not to use them.