Lawn & Garden
Gardening With Charlie - Eat Your Landscape
(Family
Features) - Drive around any residential neighborhood in the country
and you're bound to see the same, standard landscaping theme -- a few
shade or flowering trees, a green lawn, and some foundation shrubs
around the house. But it doesn't have to be that way. Imagine having a
yard that looks beautiful and produces fresh fruit, vegetables, and
herbs for you without a lot of extra work. That's edible landscaping.
Edible
landscapes incorporate food-producing plants into a residential
landscape. It's really very simple. Instead of planting a purely
ornamental tree, shrub, or flower, choose plants that are beautiful and
that also produce an edible crop.
Why Landscape with Edibles?
With
concerns today about the quality, price, and safety of our food, many
homeowners are interested in growing some of their own food. Many,
however, are overwhelmed with the idea of starting a large vegetable
garden or planting fruits and herbs. Edible landscaping gives you the
freedom to integrate as many of these edible plants into your landscape
as you like. As you gain confidence in growing your own fruits and
vegetables, you can increase the size and number of the plantings.
While
many homeowners may think edible landscaping will take too much time,
consider that a fruit tree requires only a few extra hours of
maintenance a year when compared with an ornamental tree.
How to Get Started
As
with most ornamental plants, edible landscape plants grow best in full
sun (at least 6 hours) and on well-drained, fertile soils. There are a
wide variety of edible plants to grow in almost any setting.
While
an entire yard makeover using edible plants might be your goal, it's
probably a bit too much for most homeowners to tackle all at once. The
best way to get started is to substitute plants one by one. For
example, instead of planting a flowering cherry tree, plant a sweet or
sour cherry tree. Instead of planting foundation shrubs such as yews
and burning bushes, plant blueberries and hazelnuts. Instead of
planting inedible ornamental flowers, grow edible flowers such as
daylilies (edible flower buds), bee balm (make tea from leaves and
flowers), and nasturtiums (edible leaves and flowers). Or grow
beautiful vegetables, such as eggplants, Swiss chard, and basil.
Instead of a hedge of lilacs or barberries, consider planting a hedge
of blackberries or raspberries.
Container Edibles
If
you're strapped for space, try container gardening. Plant breeders have
given us edible plants to fit into almost any size container. Dwarf
varieties of tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, herbs, and even squash can
grow in containers on a deck or patio. There are diminutive fruit
trees, such as the colonnade apple tree that grows only 8 feet tall and
2 feet wide and produces a few dozen apples. You can grow dwarf
tomatoes such as 'Window Box Roma', or herbs such as creeping thyme and
rosemary in small containers.
The options are limited only by your imagination. For more great ideas, sign up for my free Edible Landscaping e-newsletter at: www.garden.org/ediblelandscaping/.
Charlie
Nardozzi, a nationally recognized garden writer, book author, speaker
and radio and television personality, has appeared on HGTV, PBS and
Discovery Channel television networks. He is the senior horticulturist
and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association (www.garden.org) and Chief Gardening Officer for the Hilton Garden Inn.
SOURCE: National Gardening Association
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