Edible Landscapes Top Ten Questions

What is Edible Landscaping?

Edible Landscaping means combining edible fruits, vegetables, and herbs with decorative plants - trees, shrubs, and flowers.

Isn’t Edible Landscaping just a big, wild mess?

Edible Landscaping can be anything from naturalized perennials planted around fruit trees to highly manicured hedges bordered with colorful lettuces or flowers surrounding espaliered fruit trees. And any combination in between!

Why should I have an Edible Landscape?

Edible Landscapes can be beautiful, artful, decorative, colorful combinations of plants that attract birds and pollinators to the space while providing fresh food for you. Rather than huge lawns or straight rows in a garden, an edible landscape is interesting and its biodiversity makes it harder for a disease to spread, or for a critter to find every tomato! Tucking even a few consumables into your existing landscape makes you into a “locavore” - someone who eats locally grown food.

Do I have enough space to make an Edible Landscape?

Edible Landscapes can go anywhere. The backyard, front yard, next to the house or fence, the patio, or even the boulevard strip by your sidewalk (check local ordinances) all make excellent spaces. Spring bulbs bloom before blueberry bushes leaf out. A vining squash or pumpkin will roam around rose bushes. Also, think vertically - a small footprint can grow a lot of edibles on a trellis behind some shrubs or in the center of a flowerbed.

Can I do Edible Landscaping in containers?

Absolutely. A tomato sharing space with some herbs and petunias or a hanging planter with some herbs and a trailing vine brighten up a corner. A pot of lettuce can be stashed anywhere.

How much time does it take?

Plan ahead. A few edibles in a flowerbed won’t require much time, but planning, planting, watering, weeding, feeding, and harvesting an entire front yard will be a commitment. Start small - you can always add more as you learn what works.

Do I need lots of sun?

Full sun is a requirement for many edibles and flowers, but there are also many plants that do well with partial sun or even shade. Lettuces, spinach, many herbs, cruciferous vegetables, and most root vegetables, as well as many flowers and vines can flourish in less than full sun.

What would I plant?

Plant what you love! Choose edibles that you want to eat, not what someone else recommends. Don’t waste your space on colorful chard or peppers if you don’t like them! Plant hardy roses, azaleas, or hydrangeas to get amazing color every year. Put bulbs in odd places, then hide the drying foliage with herbs or other annuals. Use fruit trees and shrubs like blueberries to anchor a space. Map out a plan and then do your research to choose the best cultivars for each space.

What else do I need in order to have a nice Edible Landscape?

Choose the right plants for the right spaces, then add some non-vegetative items. Add benches, interesting planters, statues, water fountains and birdbaths, tall structures like trellises or statues, stepping stones and pathways, brightly painted supports, etc. Make your garden an inviting place you and others want to be.

Are there useful resources to help Edible Landscapers?

The Mother of Edible Landscaping is Rosalind Creasy, whose book Edible Landscaping (Counterpoint, 2nd edition, 2010) starts with her own experience turning her front yard into something new and practical. The book is filled with beautiful pictures and ideas of combinations of plantings and other artistic touches to add to your space.

Minnesota residents can find plant lists and ideas well-suited for our climate in Emily Tepe’s book The Edible Landscape (Voyageur Press, 2013). Tepe established an edible landscape demonstration garden at the University of Minnesota where she combined her artistic side with her desire to grow fresh, healthy food in beautiful ways.