The edible landscape design techniques aim to bring food back into the city and reconnect people with their local/regional food system in order to encourage a better lifestyle. Edible landscapes are a growing trend that began as a response to the slow food movement and a desire to live a greener lifestyle.
These urban agricultural landscapes are quickly becoming media darlings, demonstrating that they are capable of much more than just growing vegetables and fruits on vacant lots. The use of edible plants as design elements in a landscape is known as edible landscaping.
These plants are used for both aesthetic and culinary purposes. Edible landscapes contain a wide range of garden styles and scales but exclude food items grown for commercial purposes.
How To Design The Landscape?
If you already have plants in your yard, including vegetables, fruits, and herbs in your current beds, creating an edible landscape should be simple. Aside from supplying delicious produce, many edibles are very attractive and will enhance the beauty of your garden. Take inventory of your yard before beginning to construct an edible landscape. Look for underperforming plants that can be replaced with tasty species. Blueberries are excellent hedge plants because of their spring blossoms, wonderful fruits, and spectacular fall colour.
Most vegetables thrive in areas with six to eight hours of direct sunlight every day. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, and cabbage are all cool-season plants that tolerate some shade. However, lettuces and mini cabbages, in particular, make excellent edging plants. Obelisks and trellises are examples of garden structures that give flair to your landscape while also supporting vegetables.
Finally, don’t forget that you don’t have to grow your edibles in neat, monotonous rows. Plant in graphic, appealing patterns, leaving enough space between plants to avoid overcrowding while keeping them near enough to give a thick appearance and keep weeds at bay. (If you’re worried about spacing, look at the plant tag for information particular to the type of plant you’re planting.)
If you’re planting edibles alongside other landscape plants, you’ll want them to have neat and tidy growth patterns, few pest concerns, and abundant yields.
Time And Money
How much time do you have to devote to upkeep? Taking out the lawn and replacing it with something else will necessitate additional upkeep to maintain it nicely. If you’re short on time, consider substituting edibles for the present landscape plants while keeping the turf intact.
Annual plants require more care than perennials in order to maintain their visual appeal.
Perennials will make up the majority of a long-term landscape, but plants are costly. Buying seeds is substantially less expensive if you don’t mind bare ground for a period.
You can build your landscape over several years to spread out the cost of purchasing plants, and you can fill in the gaps with fast-growing annuals until perennial plants reach maturity.
Also read : 5 Tips For Initiating Healthy And Eco – Gardening
