Want to eat a few things growing among the flowers in your garden? That’s the gardening trend of edible landscapes or foraging gardens. Two local gardeners, Polly Cuevas and Elizabeth Register, are familiar with the terms and have some thoughts about them.
Cuevas, owner of Pine Hills Nursery, calls it foodscaping. “There are many plants that are planted to eat in the yard or garden,” she says. “You should always investigate which varieties grow in your zone to insure best yields. A reputable garden center should be able to answer your questions about this.”
She lists types of herbs such as lavender, rosemary, parsley, dill, thyme and oregano as well as others.
Register, a member of Beach Garden Society who formerly worked at Guilliot Nursery in New Orleans and did Saturday seminars for customers on herbs, perennials, and making flower/vegetable gardens, doesn’t call it a landscape, but has heard of an edible garden.
“The ones I’m familiar with are ones I saw in one of my favorite garden books, Southern Herbs and Perennials by Madeline Hill and her daughter,” she says. “Their focus was broadly to use herbs and edible flowers in landscape designs.”
Register lists some edible flowers as roses, daylilies, squash, nasturtiums, borage, violas, pansies, and many herbs.
Cuevas says, “Some typical, traditional-looking landscapes may not allow a lot of these plants to get the same look, but some strategically placed ones can enhance your landscape.”
This experienced gardener, who’s often called on for advice, says there are many typical veggies grown in the garden such as tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, cantaloupes, beans, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, cauliflower and kale cabbage.
“There are many fruit trees that grow and produce fruit in our area and can be included in the landscape too, Cuevas adds. “Some of these are citrus, avocado, loquat, mulberry, pears, peaches, apples, figs and persimmons along with nut trees such as pecans and hickory nuts.
And several fruit bushes can be grown in the landscape including blueberries, raspberries, strawberries (though not really a bush), and grapes and muscadine vines. Then there are other edible plants: millet, wild mushrooms (certain ones), asparagus, elderberry and Swiss chard.”
