Edible Landscaping 101

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Last year, I just didn’t have time to till and plant my great big garden. But I still wanted to grow some vegetables for my family, so I tried something new – edible landscaping. Over the winter, I added a bit of compost, rabbit manure, and veggie scraps to the flowerbeds around my house, making them rich and full of organic matter.

In the spring, it was easy to incorporate some herbs and vegetables within easy reach of my kitchen. This type of planting went so well that I can’t wait to expand on the idea, surrounding my house with delicious edible plants that make a beautiful landscape, as well. 

In this article, we’ll talk about how to create an edible landscape around your home. Then, we’ll talk about what to plant where and what the benefits are to edible landscaping. But first, let’s take a quick look at what edible landscaping really is. 

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What is Edible Landscaping?

Edible landscaping takes the traditional ideas of aesthetic landscaping and incorporates edible plants so that your landscape is both functional and beautiful.

Creating an edible landscape can be as simple as adding a few perennial herbs to your flowerbeds or as complex as creating an entire food forest in your yard. It’s a great way to grow your own food without having to make a traditional-looking garden. 

There are a lot of benefits to using edible landscaping as opposed to a traditional garden. 

Benefits of Edible Landscaping

• HOA Rules. If you live where there is a housing authority, you might have to abide by specific rules in your neighborhood. If your HOA doesn’t allow gardens, you may be able to incorporate edible landscaping that still meets the HOA requirements. 
• Close to the kitchen. Planting vegetables close to your home instead of a garden puts them in closer proximity to the kitchen, making them easier to access. You might even be able to reach out your window and pluck something.
• Growing your own food. Homegrown food is healthier and has more nutrients than food that has had to travel across the country to get to the grocery store. In addition, edible landscaping makes nutrient-dense food more accessible. 
• Saves money. Edible landscaping saves money on food and on landscaping because vegetables can be both beautiful and nutritious. 
• Incorporates perennials. You can include a lot of perennials into your edible landscaping, such as berry bushes and herbs, for easy-care food plants.
• Secret food. If you’re a prepper, you’ll love edible landscaping because it is less obvious that you’re growing food than if you were to plant a traditional garden. In addition, your vegetable plants can easily blend in with your flowers.
• Less Maintenance Over Time. Once established, edible landscapes—especially those that include perennials—often require less maintenance than a traditional garden. You won’t have to replant every year, and deep-rooted plants can help reduce watering needs.
• Attracts Beneficial Insects. Many edible plants, especially herbs and flowers, draw pollinators like bees and butterflies. Some, like marigolds and chives, can even help repel pests, making your garden healthier without the need for chemical pesticides.

The Best Plants for Your Edible Landscape 

Edible Flowers 

Edible flowers add flavor to salads, teas, and desserts. Some can be used in jellies and preserves, while sunflower seeds are an excellent source of protein, fat, and vitamins. 

• Butterfly Pea Flower – Adds stunning blue color to drinks and teas while also enriching the soil with nitrogen.
• Calendula – Bright, cheerful blooms that are great for skin-soothing salves and edible garnishes.
• Carnations – Fragrant petals with a spicy-sweet flavor, perfect for decorating desserts and salads.
• Clover – Fixes nitrogen in the soil while providing edible leaves and flowers rich in nutrients.
• Johnny Jump Ups – Delicate, colorful flowers that are both beautiful and mild-tasting for salads and desserts.
• Nasturtiums – Peppery leaves and flowers that repel pests while adding a bold, spicy kick to dishes.
• Pansy – Hardy, cool-weather flowers with a mild, slightly sweet flavor that brightens up any plate.
• Roses – Edible petals with a floral, slightly fruity taste, plus rose hips packed with vitamin C.
• Sunflowers – Tall, striking plants that provide edible seeds, petals, and even young sprouts.
• Violets – Sweet, fragrant flowers that can be candied, brewed into tea, or used as a natural garnish.

Herbs 

Herbs are a great choice to include in your edible landscape. Some herbs make great teas, herbal treatments, and flavors for dishes. Some will blend in easily to your flowerbeds. 

For example, lavender is often grown for its blooms and makes a soothing tea for stress and headaches. Rosemary makes an excellent, low-growing hedge, and bee balm is lovely for tea and attracting pollinators to your garden. Thyme and mint make hardy ground covers that release a sweet fragrance when stepped on.

• Basil (especially golden or purple varieties) – Adds striking color to your landscape while providing a delicious, aromatic herb for cooking.
• Bee Balm – Attracts pollinators with its bright flowers while doubling as a flavorful tea herb.
• Chives – Easy to grow, pest-repelling, and offers edible onion-flavored leaves and flowers.
• Creeping Raspberry – A hardy ground cover that prevents erosion while producing small, tasty berries.
• Dill – Feathery, delicate foliage that attracts beneficial insects and enhances pickling recipes.
• Lavender – Beautiful, drought-tolerant, and perfect for teas, aromatherapy, and attracting bees.
• Lemon Balm – A fast-growing, lemon-scented herb great for teas and natural mosquito repellent.
• Mint – Spreads quickly as a fragrant ground cover, excellent for teas and cocktails.
• Oregano – A hardy, drought-resistant herb that adds rich flavor to savory dishes.
• Parsley – A nutritious, easy-to-grow herb that makes an attractive border plant.
• Rosemary – Evergreen, drought-tolerant, and works well as a fragrant edible hedge.
• Sweet Potatoes – Offers both edible tubers and lush, trailing vines that beautify your landscape.
• Thyme – A tough, low-growing herb that releases a pleasant fragrance when stepped on.
• Wild Strawberries – A charming ground cover that provides tiny, flavorful berries all summer.

Fruits 

Fruit trees can be messy and attract bugs and animals, so place them accordingly. Many fruit trees are available in dwarf varieties, so they fit much better into smaller back yards than their full-size counterparts.

Also, some fruit varieties need several of the same trees to produce fruit, so make sure you do your research so you know what to get. 

• Apples – Classic, long-lived trees that provide beautiful spring blossoms and a reliable fruit harvest.
• Figs – Low-maintenance trees or shrubs that produce sweet, nutritious fruit with minimal care.
• Grapes – Fast-growing vines that create natural shade while yielding delicious clusters of fruit.
• Pears – Elegant trees with fragrant blossoms and juicy, easy-to-grow fruit.
• Peaches – Lush, ornamental trees that offer fragrant flowers and sweet, juicy fruit.
• Persimmons – Stunning fall foliage and vitamin-rich fruit that ripens late in the season.
• Plums – Hardy, compact trees that produce abundant, flavorful fruit perfect for fresh eating or preserves.
• Oranges (depending on the climate) – Evergreen trees with glossy leaves, fragrant blooms, and vitamin-packed citrus fruit.

Berries

Many berries will come back year after year. Berry bushes make great borders to your yard. In addition, strawberries make an excellent ground cover. 

• Blackberries – Hardy, fast-growing canes that produce sweet, antioxidant-rich berries year after year.
• Mulberries – Beautiful shade trees that produce an abundance of sweet, juicy berries with little effort.
• Raspberries – Low-maintenance, prolific berry bushes that provide a steady summer harvest.
• Strawberries – A versatile ground cover that spreads quickly and delivers small, flavorful berries.

Vegetables 

Like Swiss chard and asparagus, some vegetables blend in easily because of their pretty foliage. Other plants, like tomatoes, are more obvious. You might consider putting these in a container or a backyard. 

• Asparagus – A perennial vegetable that produces tender spears year after year with minimal maintenance.
• Carrots – Easy to grow with feathery foliage that adds texture while providing sweet, crunchy roots.
• Greens – Nutrient-dense and fast-growing, perfect for filling gaps in flower beds with edible leaves.
• Peas – Climbing vines that add vertical interest while producing sweet, tender pods.
• Radishes – Quick-growing and colorful, great for edging garden beds and improving soil health.
• Rainbow Swiss Chard – Stunning, colorful stems that brighten landscapes while offering nutritious leafy greens.
• Tomatoes – A garden staple with lush foliage, vibrant fruit, and endless culinary uses.

Special Considerations 

Plants with long vines can be incorporated as long as you have the space for their vines to grow. For example, you don’t want sweet potato or watermelon vines causing a tripping hazard on sidewalks, but they could grow up a trellis instead. 

• Pole beans 
• Sweet Potatoes
• Vining Peas 
• Vining Squash 
• Watermelon 

What to Plant Where 

There are a number of considerations when you are planning your edible landscape. 

1. Daylight. My house has a shady and a sunny side, so sun-loving veggies need to be planted on the sunny side. Hostas and certain ferns, which are edible when prepared correctly, grow in the shady areas. And while we may not eat them regularly, I know that they are there if we need food! 
2. Wind and Weather Exposure. If you live in a windy area, delicate plants like lettuce and basil may struggle unless planted in a sheltered spot. On the other hand, hardy plants like rosemary, sage, and kale can withstand harsher conditions.
3. Microclimates. Different parts of your yard may have their own microclimates. South-facing walls absorb and radiate heat, making them great for heat-loving plants like peppers, while low spots may hold moisture longer, which is ideal for water-loving greens like spinach.
4. Mess. Fruit trees and berry bushes are great to incorporate into your edible landscaping. However, they can cause quite a mess when the fruit drops! They can also attract bees and animals. So you’ll need to place these pieces away from driveways, sidewalks, and potentially further from your home, if possible. For example, the edges of my backyard are lined with bramble bushes, which help deter unwanted visitors and keeps the berry mess away from my house and driveway. 
5. Visibility. If you don’t want passersby to see what you’re growing or if your HOA has certain rules about what you can plant in the front of your home, you may want to keep most of your veggies in the backyard out of sight. 
6. Water access. If you have water-loving veggies, you may want to grow them nearer to your water supply. Other types of plants, such as herbs, are often drought-tolerant once established so that you can plant them further from the hose.
7. Use Vegetable Plants to Fill Up Empty Space. If you have ‘holes’ in your flower beds where there aren’t any plants, these are great spaces to fill up with salad greens, radishes, and carrots or chives. These smaller veggies will add interest without being too obvious, and they’ll make good use of what might otherwise be wasted space. 

Edible Landscaping Tips 

• Start with what you’ve got. You don’t need to rip out every flower bed and all of your grass to start a food forest or edible landscape. Instead, start with what you’ve got – take notes of what plants are growing well where, and add edible plants to it over time. Creating your edible landscape this way can be as simple as adding herbs to a flower bed or tucking some greens around a bush by the back door. 
• Plant what you eat. One year I made the mistake of planting all kinds of exciting vegetables only to discover my family didn’t like any of them! The lesson I learned that year was to focus on mainly growing the fruits and vegetables that you and your family will actually eat and only experiment with a few varieties. You also need to make sure you pick fruits and vegetables that grow well in your climate. 
• Don’t use pesticides if you can avoid them. You may want to avoid using commercial pesticides and fertilizers when possible. Instead, incorporate compost and natural insect deterrents, such as marigolds, to keep your garden growing.
• Keep aesthetics in mind. Don’t just plant rows of lettuce in your flowerbed because it’ll just look like a traditional garden. Instead, create a backdrop with larger plants in the back of the bed and border plants towards the front. Then you can fill in gaps with pretty veggies, interesting herbs, and edible flowers. 
• Companion plant when possible. Certain plants do well helping each other grow. For example, if you are planting fruit trees, you may want to incorporate a few plants such as lavender, rosemary, and chives around the base of the tree. The fragrance from these plants will ward off pests, but the blooms will attract pollinators. Plant onions with roses to keep bugs at bay. 
• Don’t mix toxic plants with edible plants. Especially if you have small children, it can be confusing to know what plants are edible and what are not. The easiest way to mix flowers with vegetable plants is to use only edible flowers, and there are plenty to choose from! 
• Group plants with similar needs together. You can mix different types of plants together as long as their needs are similar. For example, you can mix flowers and herbs if they have the same sun and watering needs.
• Layer Your Edible Landscape. Think of your edible landscape like a natural forest, with different plant layers. Use trees for an upper canopy (fruit trees), shrubs for a middle layer (berries and herbs), and ground covers for the lowest level (strawberries, thyme). This creates a more diverse, resilient, and productive landscape.

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