ornamental (mostly non-edible) plants since I keep telling you that this is simple and that you don’t have to start over? In case you’re apprehensive, I promise this isn’t a bait-and-switch.
It’s possible that the foundation landscape around your house is thin or that you think the plants are ugly. Maybe they’re old and overgrown and you want to start fresh, or maybe they’re young and boring. Perhaps you’d just like to add more evergreens for year-round interest or to provide a better backdrop for your edibles. Your rainbow chard will look better growing in front of a boxwood than in front of nothing at all.
The important thing is to find a balance between ornamentals and edibles. Ornamentals, oddly enough, are the most critical part of the foodscape, as they are the permanent features that add color, texture and biodiversity. If your entire landscape were all food, you wouldn’t know where to begin and you would be overwhelmed by having to replace everything seasonally.
Peanuts growing in a formal landscape.
Design Styles
No matter the style of garden you prefer – from English cottage garden to minimalist – there are beautiful ways to integrate food into it. In new developments particularly, you will primarily be dealing with a young and underdeveloped formal design. Almost every house will have a base layer of permanent evergreen shrubs that will eventually grow together (that’s how people in older houses ended up with monster yew hedges out front that require a backhoe to remove). A newer landscape is one of the easiest to start with in terms of adding food because there’s still plenty of open space and sunshine.
Assessing and Improving the Ornamental Landscape
If you inherited a landscape full of plants you don’t like, creating a foodscape gives you the opportunity to start anew. If, on the other hand, you’re fine with the ornamentals already in place but want to make the landscape more functional, simply start by improving on what you inherited.
The first thing I do as a designer is to add biodiversity through the ornamental plant collection. The developer-planted landscapes I see where I live include a lot of plants in the holly family, so I start by adding in different families of plants. By increasing biodiversity, you’re encouraging the arrival of more beneficial insects and pollinators, which, in the long run, benefits the edibles. Some of my go-to plants for a Southern foodscape include Encore® azaleas, Knock Out® roses, butterfly bushes, hydrangeas, quince and fall and spring blooming camellias. I also like to incorporate native plants such as Fothergilla and Itea which have beautiful fall foliage and flowers that provide nectar seasonally. The most important part of being a designer is to understand and meet the needs of my client. I want to know what the goals of each unique the foodscape are – what colors, textures and seasons do my clients want to experience? It’s important to me to ask what they like – if they’re happier with pink flowers, or blue, or if they want landscape interest during a particular season.
If you’re confused about the plants in your foundation landscape, find a reputable landscape designer in your area and get some feedback about how large they’re likely to grow, when they’ll bloom (or not), whether they’re evergreen, and if they have any special soil requirements. For example, azaleas grow best in slightly acidic soil, which is not necessarily optimal for cabbage family plants. Also, if you know the name of a plant, there are many online sites where you can find advice.
Emphasis on Trees and Shrubs
Foodscaping focuses on two main plant groups because they are relatively easy to grow: 1) ornamental trees and shrubs, and 2) seasonal annuals (a mix of flowers and edibles). Trees and shrubs go in the ground and go to town. A bit of pruning for structure every now and then and a seasonal hit of organic fertilizer and they’re good to go. You plant annuals each season, reap the benefits, and then yank them out. If you’ve grown a petunia, you can grow lettuce; they’re both seasonal annuals.
‘Limelight’ hydrangea makes a good backdrop for a basil edge.
A third plant group, perennials, can be more challenging to deal with because you find yourself struggling with these common questions: When should I cut back? When should I divide them? How do I plant perennials to make sure there’s something pretty and colorful blooming all of the time?
In my experience as a home gardener I find it easier to start a design with woody ornamentals, such as trees and shrubs, that don’t disappear underground in winter and will retain a year-round structure in the garden – and then think about incorporating flowering plants that add color and texture. I have become very selective about the perennial plants that I grow as some varieties can spread vigorously or reseed, taking up space that I’d rather devote to growing food.
It ultimately comes down to what garden maintenance tasks do you enjoy? I don’t like digging and divining; I prefer sowing seed and replanting each season. There’s no harm in adding well-behaved perennials but don’t beat yourself up if you choose to stick to lower-maintenance plants in your foodscape. Give yourself permission to make the most out of your landscape on your terms.
Plant Types: A Few Examples
Woody Ornamentals (plants that keep their woody structure and don’t die back to the ground in winter)
• Azalea
• Hydrangea
• Crape Myrtle
• Camellia
• Yew
Perennials (plants that die to the ground in fall and winter, but keep their rootstock and come back in the spring for two or more years)
• Agastache
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Penstemon
• Purple Coneflower
• Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’
Purple coneflower
Colorful & Dependable Annual Flowers for Your Foodscape
If you’d like to add annual flowers to your foodscape, here are some good options. They’re easy to grow from seed most anywhere and pack a punch with pollinators.
Cuphea
Melampodium
Warm Season Annuals
I find that my summer plant palette has more flowering annuals than edibles because of where I live; my options for food crops that I can grow in the heat of the Carolina summer are a bit slim. If you live in a cooler region, you might
