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What is an Edible Landscape?
Lots of people are making the move to more natural landscapes. This includes gardens which showcase plants that are practical or which produce food. Quite a few vegetable plants are very striking, and many edible plants have decorative varieties. And with the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables increasing at a shocking pace, it might not be such a bad idea to produce your own.
The majority of people who build edible landscapes utilize perennial vegetables, since they return every spring with no need to replant. After they're planted, they'll go on providing beauty and food for as long as you tend them.
These plants require little in the way of care; just watering, feeding, a bit of weeding, pruning and keeping any insect pests under control will be sufficient. There are plenty of perennial vegetable plants which are great choices. Remember, perennials do die back in the winter, so don't be alarmed when your plants appear to go away in the fall - they'll come back in the spring!
You might not want the responsibility of caring for a traditional garden. Normal gardens are a lot of hard work. A traditional garden will require constant activity - weeding, raking, hoeing, watering, fertilizing, and spraying. However, edible landscapes require scarcely more work than traditional ones.
Regular landscaping can be replaced with many varieties of edible plants. For example, plant fruit trees rather than non-fruit bearing varieties. To replace ground covers and shrubs many perennial herbs are possibilities. Also, ornamental vegetables can be an option instead of flowers and borders.
Try combining edible plants with ordinary flowers and ornamental plants for an attractive arrangement. Many edible plants, particularly herbs, are good complements to a flower garden. You can blend many varieties of plants together to create a distinctive and appealing landscape.
The use of curly parsley enhances a variety of plants. It looks beautiful when planted in combination with other edibles, like strawberries, or flowers such as pansies and lobelia. Low shrubbery, such as sage and oregano, will add a practical beauty to your landscaping. They compliment your landscape greatly when used as edging in front of larger bushes.
Planting beds of leaf lettuces can easily create accent areas. Edge with a border grass and then fill the plant bed with your choice of multi colored varieties of leaf lettuce.
Edible flowers are also a wonderful idea. There are plants which give in more ways than one. Snap peas, for instance. Besides producing peas, they also give you the gift of beautiful pink, white and purple flowers on attractive vines.
Fava beans produce red and white blossoms. Chives have remarkable purple globe-shaped blooms. Dill has attractive yellow flowers. Nasturtiums are another beautiful edible flower, and bloom in shades of orange, yellow and red. Sage and salvia both have purple and blue flowers.
Requiring little maintenance (and delicious), perennial herbs and vegetables are a fantastic idea in any landscaping. Dandelions, chives, rhubarb, sweet potatoes, ginger, asparagus, sorrel and more are all wonderful to look at and to eat as well.
About the Author Sarah Duke is publisher of The Vegetable Patch at http://www.vegetablegardensite.com, where you'll find lots of information for starting a vegetable garden.
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