Edible Ornamental Garden

A beautiful landscape can feed your body as well as your mind and spirit, when you include some edible ornamental plants.

Keep a few strawberries within reach of your meals by growing them in hanging baskets or containers. Or find a patch of sunny ground and use them as a groundcover. The flowers, fruit, and fall color provide seasons of beauty.

Hops will quickly cover a fence or trellis and provide hops for the home brewer. Keep the pruners handy to keep this vigorous grower in check.

Or grow your favorite beans and peas or those with colorful flowers and fruit on a fence or trellis.

Use raspberries to make an impenetrable hedge and provide screening. Regular pruning will keep these spreaders under control, producing lots of fruit, and usually pest free.

Add a bit of edible living art to your landscape with espaliered apples, pears, plums, or cherries. These beauties provide flowers, fruit, and fall color for you to enjoy.

A bit more information: Many ornamental plants also provide edible fruits. Serviceberry, elderberry, roses, crabapples, plums, cherries, and mulberries are just a few. Cornelian cherry dogwoods, quince, and chokeberry produce edible fruit that might need a bit, or a lot of sugar to make them edible.