By: Kathee Mierzejewski
A lot of people do vegetable landscaping in their yard. There are a lot of reasons that people would actually incorporate vegetables and herbs into the landscaping around their home. For one thing, not everyone has a yard large enough for an actual vegetable garden. Vegetable landscaping allows the grower to enjoy home-grown fruits and vegetables and save on their grocery bills without having to have a large separate vegetable garden.
So, what vegetables can be used for landscape? There are plenty of them. Vegetable landscapes are nothing more than mixing flowers and vegetables throughout the garden. You can have fruit and nut trees in the same place as your ornamental dwarf maple. It doesn’t matter.
Landscaping with vegetables is simple. You can mix vegetables in flower gardens by putting flowers throughout and lining the outside of the garden with cabbage and lettuce. There are plenty of vegetable plants that can be incorporated in the landscaping around your home. Some of these vegetables for landscaping include:
- Bell peppers
- Kale
- Hot peppers
- Tomatoes
- Swiss Chard
- Asparagus
- Winter squashes (for ground covers and climbing plants)
Vegetable landscaping in history
Landscaping with vegetables has been done forever. Back in Medieval times, the monastic gardens included flowers, medicinal herbs and vegetables. Today, as yards get smaller with population in the cities growing, it is becoming more and more popular. Edible plants have special condition requirements just like anything else you would plant in your garden. Make sure you mix vegetables in flower gardens that have flowers with the same requirements.
Benefits of mixing flowers and vegetables
Mixing flowers and vegetables is not difficult. Some flowers actually are used in vegetable gardens to keep bugs and animals away. When mixing flowers and vegetables, just make sure everything in the garden requires the same amount of watering and food.
Again, if you are still wondering “What vegetables can be used for landscaping,” the answer is as varied as the different types of plants out there. Use your best judgment in mixing flowers and vegetables in the same garden space, and use your imagination when going for the aesthetic value you seek in the gardens around your home. You can’t go wrong when landscaping with vegetables.
