Beautiful Edibles-Landscaping with Plants You Can Eat

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There are so many gorgeous vegetable garden plants that you can tuck into your front yard landscaping. You can replace many typical plants in the flower bed with beautiful edibles.

Vegetable gardening in the front yard can not only be space-saving and practical. Many vegetable plants are absolutely gorgeous and make for a show-stopping display

If you don’t have much space to grow food-or even if you do-beautiful edibles might be just perfect for your garden plan.

I love the idea of any nontraditional gardens. We don’t plant neat little rows in our preschool garden. In fact, in our radish patch, there are more radishes growing in the gravel pathway than in the actual garden because the kids dropped so many seeds.

But it’s still fun to grow and learn more things. So, who cares about the pristine perfection of it all? When I retire from home daycare and start planting on my own, I can’t imagine my garden in neat little rows. I love the nontraditional.

Landscaping with edible plants

So naturally, I love the idea of tucking beautiful edibles right in the front yard with my landscaping plants. A few years ago, we had a big front yard bed built and filled it with sweet potatoes and okra plants. I got more compliments on that flower bed than I ever had before AND it produced 89 pounds of yummy sweet potatoes.

Edible landscaping shrubs

We took out our diseased boxwood shrubs and replaced them with dwarf blueberry bushes. They have gorgeous red leaves in the fall and early winter and they are very pretty plants. Plus, they smell better than boxwoods. I always thought they smelled like cat pee. AND we get to eat a few blueberries every spring.

Some of the prettiest and most showy trees you can put in your landscaping are fruit trees. Those spring blossoms are gorgeous. Redbuds are lovely, but cherry and apple trees are just as lovely. Think about how you can incorporate beautiful edibles in your front yard. My favorite bush in the front yard is my gorgeous fig bush. It’s a show-stopper. Those leaves are sensational.

Edible plants that are ornamental

Think about the benefits of some edible flowers? Marigolds and nasturtiums are edible and they are gorgeous. But did you know they also drive pests from your other edible plants? They also add an enormous amount of color and texture to the garden. So, think about them when planting your landscaping.

There are other flowers that are edible such as pansies, lavender, calendula, sunflowers and more. Roses are edible as well. And there are many vegetable garden plants that have edible flowers on them. Think about how gorgeous chive flowers are.

Front yard landscaping with edibles

Speaking of chives, consider how gorgeous and useful most herb plants are. A rosemary plant offers some wonderful texture and height in your landscaping plan. You can grow oregano in a hanging basket and let it drape over the edges.

Creeping thyme makes a wonderful ground cover that you can even walk on. And it’s completely edible. Basil is gorgeous and comes in variegated varieties, regular shapes, and globe shapes, as well as different colors. Purple basil is one of my favorite plants. I get compliments on the flowers it grows every time I plant it.

Edible landscaping vines

Do you have an archway or arbor in your garden? Grow some beans or grapevines on it. The plants are so pretty as they climb up over the structure. Have you ever seen the gorgeous flowers on the scarlet runner bean plant?

You can even grow cucumbers or squash that way. They are pretty vines as well. Many gourds grow on gorgeous vines. We love to grow birdhouse gourds and luffa sponge gourds along the front part of our garden that is visible from the street because the vines are so pretty. We grew Chinese python snake beans the year before last and they had some of the prettiest flowers I’ve ever seen.

Ornamental vegetable plants

Think about a beautiful edible border in your front yard of colored leaf lettuces. You can alternate greens and reds and even speckled lettuces or grow all one color along the border. Sage would make a gorgeous border as well.

If you’re looking for an amazing splash of color in your landscaping, think about swiss chard or amaranth. They can outperform any non-edible for color. And if you grow too much excess swiss chard, here’s what you can do!

Kale is a beautiful plant with a gorgeous texture. You can even grow kale in pots. Strawberry plants are beautiful too. The possibilities are endless in edible landscaping. We’ve had a strawberry patch as the focal point of our front flower bed by our front door for over 20 years.

I love the shape of cabbage. It’s like a big flower itself. In my opinion, it’s one of the prettiest plants in the vegetable garden. I would landscape with cabbages at any time. And don’t forget about brightly colored hot peppers or sweet peppers. They are pretty as well.

Edible landscape

Don’t forget about how tasty these edibles may be to wildlife. Most landscaping is not fenced in the same way a vegetable garden is, so choosing plants that won’t get eaten by deer, rabbits, and squirrels is a good idea. You can plant your edibles among plants with repellent scents such as marigolds and scratchy textures such as artichokes to help with this.

Grow your edible landscaping in full sun, give them fertile soil, and inspect them often for bugs and disease so they won’t become an eyesore. If it starts looking bad, don’t worry about tearing it out and replacing it with something healthier.

If you have a shade garden, try herbs and lettuces there too. Strawberries can take some shade as well. Research what can be grown in the shade and you’ll find a good solution.

So, can you really grow vegetables in your front yard? Of course, you can! Grow your own food the beautiful edibles way. And have a snack while you’re working in your flowerbeds.