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15 Best Edible Landscaping Ideas For Your Yard

Landscaping with food is beautiful and useful. Why plant poisonous ornamental flowers, trees, and shrubs when you can have the same beauty with the added nutritional benefits of edible landscaping? You can easily reduce living expenses while beautifying your environment with these edible landscaping ideas. And don’t forget: edible landscaping is both physically and mentally beneficial.

chive flowers.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Edible Landscaping Ideas

1. Fruit Trees

a woman's hand picking an apple from a tree.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Plant dwarf fruit trees like apples, pears, or cherries for a beautiful and fruitful addition to your landscape.

2. Berry Bushes

Blueberries ripening on the bush.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries can be grown in shrub form, adding color and flavor.

3. Herb Spiral

a spiral shaped herb garden.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Create a spiral-shaped garden with herbs like basil, thyme, and rosemary. Here’s a 12-pack variety of herbs.

4. Edible Flowers

Nasturtium flowers.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

Edible flowers are excellent for adding color and nutrients to salads. Some favorites are nasturtiums, pansies, and violets. Chives are also great in salads or garnish in soups and other foods.

5. Citrus Trees

potted citrus tree
Image credit: Depositphotos

Grow citrus trees in containers or in the ground (depending on your location) for a refreshing touch.

6. Tomato Hedge

green and red cherry tomatoes forming a hedge.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

Plant a row of tomato plants in a hedge-like fashion for beauty and a bountiful harvest. You’ll need to keep on top of the yellowing leaves towards the end of the season if you want your hedge to look good.

7. Edible Ground Cover

sweet potato vine.
Image Credit: Depositphotos

Replace traditional ground cover with edible options like sweet potato, creeping thyme, or mint.

8. Vegetable Borders

rows of cabbage.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

Use vegetables like kale, chard, or lettuce to create colorful borders around flower beds.

9. Grape Arbor

grape vine.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

Create a shaded seating area with a grape arbor, providing fruit and a relaxing spot.

10. Edible Hedge

red currants.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Use compact fruiting shrubs like currants or gooseberries to create an edible hedge.

11. Medicinal Herb Garden

a beautiful corner of my yard displaying a huge lavender plant, a bird feeder and a gold finch bird sitting atop an echinacea flower.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

Mix medicinal herbs like echinacea, chamomile, and lavender for both beauty and function.

12. Cherry Tomato Hanging Baskets

cherry tomatoes in a hanging basket.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Hang baskets of cherry tomatoes from pergolas or porch ceilings for a colorful and convenient snack.

13. Edible Rock Garden

Thyme growing in a rock garden.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Nestle herbs and small vegetables among rocks for a visually appealing and functional rock garden.

14. Mushroom Logs

Honey mushrooms grown in the woods.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Integrate mushroom logs into shaded areas for an unexpected and delicious harvest.

15. Rosehips

rose hip berries.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Rosehip berries are excellent for jelly and make a delicious tea that is good for your health.

Have a wet spot in your garden? Grow some stinging nettle. Or, if you live in a warm state, plant some palm trees in your landscape and get coconuts, dates, and other fruits, depending on which type of palm tree to plant.

Edible Landscaping Benefits

It is safe for children

Edible landscaping is a creative approach to beautification that includes all forms of edible plants: trees, shrubs, and even herbs.  With an edible landscape, parents are free to let their young ones wonder about and be their usual curious selves.

Saves money

With the pressures of today’s economy, it’s no wonder landscaping with food has a distinct appeal because of the potential savings it offers. People always seek creative ways to cut costs and increase their income.

With the right selection of edible plants, fruit trees, and herbs, your landscape will provide for your or your family’s needs. You’ll now enjoy yummy fruits, vegetables, and herbs you no longer need to purchase. You can also sell some of your extra produce for additional income.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are good for your health

Surprisingly, edible gardening positively affects the human body, both physically and mentally. The delight of sitting under a fruit tree, eating freshly picked fruit on a sunny day, cannot be easily mimicked.  It is priceless.

The health benefits of eating fresh organic fruit are well known.  By cooking with natural herbs and spices picked fresh each day as meals are prepared, you replace processed salts and seasonings and help reduce high blood pressure.

Planting a food garden provides positive mental stimulation through several senses:  your eyes, ears, and, indeed, your nose.

Edible garden landscaping is beneficial to the environment

Edible landscaping is the green approach to outdoor beautification: it has amazing benefits for the environment and people.  A splash of bright red, yellow, and green apples dazzling your horizon, complemented by the scent of your rosemary bush, could only make you smile after a long, hard day.

15 Edible landscaping ideas.
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Adriana Copaceanu is a passionate nature lover living in the country on her dream property where she grows vegetables, lavender, and wildflowers that she shares with the wildlife they attract. When she's not in the garden, she loves spending time with her chickens and planning her next nature project. Check out her books below:

How to Grow Lavender for Fun and Profit: Lessons Learned from Planting Three Hundred Lavender Plants

How to Raise Chickens for Eggs: A Guide to Raising Happy, Healthy Chickens for Nutritious, Organic Eggs at Home

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We have a good orchard (small) for fresh fruits, preserves and butters. We added bees (3rd year!) , hens and will be adding elderberry this year.