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| Photo Credit: Don Goode |
| Fruiting trees and shrubs (like this plum tree) offer attractive – and edible – additions to the landscape. |
It may seem hard to believe, but many people in today’s world have never grown any fruits, vegetables or herbs of their own. Maybe they think they need a huge plot of land, but that’s just not true. The fact is you don’t have to plant a big vegetable garden to enjoy homegrown food –you can integrate many lovely edibles right into your landscape.
Fruiting plants like plum, cherry, mulberry, citrus or persimmon make attractive garden additions. Figs can form large bushes to accent an open area. Blueberry bushes make lovely hedges that you can prune to a desired shape and size. And I enjoy driving my mower by my kumquat tree for a snack as I work in the yard! We can’t forget the wonderful nut trees like hickory, pecan and walnuts either. They’re excellent shade providers. (Just be sure to plant them away from the house, utility buildings and parking areas – falling nuts can make quite a racket when they hit a rooftop!) | Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: Don Goode | | This pokeweed/poke salad plant makes a nice addition to the edible landscape. |
Vegetables can also add texture and beauty to your landscape. Even if you don’t have a garden area dedicated to veggies, you can still add a tomato plant to the corner of a flower bed and tie it to your rose arbor for support. Cabbage, broccoli and kale make attractive bedding plants, and the blooms of delicious okra look like their decorative hibiscus cousins. A cluster of corn stalks or amaranth makes a great ornamental grass arrangement after the stalks dry come fall. Sweet potato vines are an attractive groundcover. And many vegetables (think peppers and tomatoes for starters) are available in colorful varieties you can use to brighten your planting beds, as well as your plates. (Just be sure not to use harmful chemicals on any plants you intend to consume!)
Then there are the wild plants that are great for eating, too. In fact, the pioneers relied on them for a big portion of their food supply. It may surprise you, but a beautiful edible landscape can include plants that many consider “weeds!” If you’ve ever eaten the cooked greens of newly sprouting pokeweed, tried a pesto made from chickweed or munched on pickles made from the root of the rattlesnake weed, you can appreciate the value of these uncultivated plants. Some folks even look forward to a spring salad of wild violet leaves combined with dandelion leaves and wild onion greens.
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