The Iowa Gardener: Edibles in your landscape

Nowhere is it written that edible plants all have to go over here and flowers all have to go over there. Some of the most charming gardens combine fruits, vegetables and flowers with abandon.

Mixing up your edible plantings with your ornamental plantings also is a smarter, more effective way to use your space, especially if you have only a few random sunny spots in your yard, rather than a big sun-drenched expanse for, say, a large vegetable garden.

Here's how to mix flowers and edibles:

l Instead of a shade tree, plant a fruit tree, such as an apple, pear, cherry or plum. They have beautiful spring flowers and produce tons of fruit. Just read the label carefully to make sure you don't need a second similar tree nearby for cross-pollination and production of actual fruits. 'Self-pollinating” types are available.

l Miniature fruit trees that grow just a few feet high - no taller than a bush - are excellent planted flower beds or elsewhere and are surprisingly productive.

l Use edibles as an edging along paths or the fronts of beds and borders. Chives, strawberries and lettuces all make attractive front-of-border plants.

l Tuck in herbs just about anywhere. They're easy to grow and mix well with flowers. Many will even bloom themselves and some, like oregano and thyme, attract butterflies. Annual basil, parsley, and cilantro are great in windowboxes, containers, or anywhere in the regular flower bed. Low-growing oregano and thyme make great groundcovers. Rosemary and bay are fragrant shrubs. Sage comes in beautiful variegations of leaf color.

l Plant hot peppers, sweet peppers, and eggplant just about anywhere there's space. They grow just a foot or two across and high, need little staking, and the edible parts are very attractive.

l Rhubarb is a beautiful flowering plant. Include it in and flower bed or other decorative planting.

l Create vertical supports for tall vegetables or vining ones. Insert trellises along the back of the border, or put freestanding bamboo teepees in the middle of a bed or border. Or make a wire or fishing line trellis along a garage or shed wall. Plant with pole beans, tall (indeterminate-type) tomatoes, vining cucumbers, green or snap peas, or any other vining type of plant.

I've found my kids play structure makes a great place to plant pole beans. I can just climb up to the top level to harvest every last one!

l Try an edible hedge. Plant feathery-looking asparagus, or several rows of sweet corn for an informal hedge that will be at its peak a couple of months of the year. Try blueberry bushes or miniature fruit trees for a more long-term hedge.

Get creative and mix up your plants. You'll have a fun, your garden will be more interesting, and you'll have more fresh, healthy, economical produce for your kitchen.

l Veronica Lorson Fowler is co-publisher of The Iowa Gardener website at www.theiowagardener.com