When people think of gardens that you can harvest, they typically think of a vegetable garden arranged in neat rows. But there is no reason that edible plants can’t be incorporated into a landscape bed, or that vegetable gardens cannot be designed as ornamental landscapes. Edible landscaping seeks to incorporate the best parts of landscaping and vegetable gardening. This can be particularly good for homeowners with small yards, or those who want a unifying theme throughout their yard instead of separate vegetable gardens and landscape beds.

Like most ornamental plants, vegetables enjoy nutrient rich soil. If you have established landscape beds, applying compost before planting and mulching your garden should be all that is needed to prepare the gardens for edible landscaping. When starting from scratch, they can be prepared like any new garden bed.

Planning the Design

When incorporating edible landscaping into your yard, design is one of the most important things to consider. As in a landscape that is strictly ornamental, the design should be planned for year-round interest. For ornamentals this includes bloom-time, attractiveness of foliage, and what the plant looks like over winter. In a yard designed for edible landscaping, gardeners will also have to consider attractiveness of fruit and what the plant will look like after it is harvested.

Making sure you have strong hardscape elements in the landscape can help make a wide variety of plants look like a uniform design. Strong lines from fences, arbors, and gates will help balance designs. Neat paths and stepping stones can also help unify the landscape and create a finished look.

Ornamental and edible plants can be combined in a variety of ways. Planting fruit trees is a good way to start edible landscaping, and they can form a large part of your design. Peach, plum, apple, and some of the hardier figs and citrus all make good choices. If space is limited, they can be trained as espaliers or you can plant columnar varieties. New trees should be planted while they are dormant in the winter to minimize transplant shock.

Choosing Plants

Cool-weather greens like lettuce and spinach can be planted late winter or early spring in Texas, in the same boarders with crocus and other spring flowering bulbs. Herbs are also a good choice for the edible landscape. Many of them have attractive foliage, and their scent can help spice up the garden, especially if you plant them in boarders where you’re more likely to brush against the leaves.

Climbing vegetables, like vining varieties of peas, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, melon, and squash, can be trained up trellises alongside clematis and trumpet vines. Peppers work well in flower boarders. Marigolds can be grown with tomatoes, with the added benefit that French marigolds help repel white flies and nematodes that can damage tomato plants.

Edible landscaping is a great idea for Texas gardeners who want to make the most of limited space or have a more visually appealing vegetable gardens more visually appealing. Incorporating vegetables and ornamental plants in the same garden can create a pleasing design, and also provide an interesting new project for gardeners.