Yeah .. I have given up on a lawn in my home .. I'm doing a major renovation and plan to have a small herb and vegatable garden in fron of the house .. like a 4 foot by 4 foot square foot garden ..

... although vegatable and fruit tree gardens demand much more time to be productive so it may not be everyones cup of tea.

Good Day ...

My favorite quote from the article: "I'm really interested in using the garden as a bridge rather than a moat."

Dave

If I remember correctly, DWELL Magazine focuses almost exclusively on small living quarters and efficient (upscale) modern living.

I have included edibles in my landscape beds for as long as I can remember. At first, it was nessitated by lack of space ... and income. However, I was always struck (and still am) by the joyful delight guests express when they realize many of the beautiful plants catching their attention from a distance were but common vegetable plants only recognized at close viewing.

The many leaf lettuces are a no-brainer at adding drifts of color to early spring landscapes. The fun is only expanded when you can send guests home with a bagful of your landscape abundance. When you see a disconcerting "hole" in your gardens, break out of the mold and consider planting a fast growing annual from the vegetable section of the nursery.

If you ever get the chance, attend a lecture by renowned photographer, David Cavagnaro. His photos of vegetables are sure to help you see the underlying beauty of these plants. We are really missing opportunity with we relegate these beautiful plants to "just a vegetable garden out back".

IronBelly

Here is a link that might be useful: David Cavagnaro

That's what first brought me to Gardenwebs a few years ago. We had just bought an older house, now once removed, and wanted to do an edible landscape as the main landscape for a small 0.2 acre yard that was currently 100% turf.

I found both landscape folks (designers, architects, installers, etc) and fruit horticulturists (academia/extension) totally unable to deal with this scenario. We got lots of suggestion of little plots here and there, but nothing integrated.

I grew up on a PYO fruit farm so the fruit growing was not as difficult as figuring how to incorporate the material as to not be "vissually challenging."

After a year or two, we realized we had to incorporate many more evergreens than I had anticipated (almost all fruits in zone 6/7 are deciduous). We did however, end up with ~40 varieties/20 distinct types of fruit in our small yard/landscape.

Whereas a fruit grower would never underplant/interplant a fruit tree with evergreens due to pest issues, siting fruit material in a residential landscape often involved us making some trade-offs. For instance, we had a Fuyu persimmon and some apple trees underplanted with trailing evergreen shrubs and spring bulbs; a hedge of blueberries, currents, and gooseberries interplanted with camellia, azalea, yew, and hydrangea; a bed with a large blueberry underplanted with hosta and astible. We also had thornless blackberries and grapes trellised separately on fences along side and where climbing roses may have been placed.

The yard was just starting to be really productive and no longer look visually challenging when we sold (after ~5 years after planting) to find a larger place. We had fresh fruit on the vine/tree the entire time the house was listed.

The new place is considerably more shady and we're limiting ourselves to an espaliered apple fence and a hedge mostly of blueberries and evergreens. Eliminating the visually challenging aspects required too much effort on our part.

Greetings one and all!! We have played with several edible scenerios in the side yard and along the fence. Nothing on the grand scale that nandina is talking about. Blue berries and several varieties of grape are remnants of our landscape experiments. It is a challenge findinding edible plants to incrporate into the tradtional landscape. I like the ideas of incorporation of kurtg. This is one of the problems I found when we had a small yard that less is more when it comes to fruit bearing trees and can really take more maintainence than a "tradtional " landscape. Fun things like red ruffled and other leaf varieties for landscape borders . Growing nastursiums & pansies for salads and deep frying day lily buds. This year it has been decided to do container gardens, window boxes and porch planters with our summer kitchen garden. Making edibles easy to care for. We have been enjoying the lawn again now that the gran'babies are growing up and am now proficient in a mean game of badmitton.LOL
P

I've given up on edible landscaping--with the exception of stinky, resinous herbs such as rosemary. If my yard were configured in such a way as to allow deer fencing...

sigh.

Dwell is one of my favorite magazines as well...I don't think of it as featuring small...I think of it as featuring "modern."

Perry--I bet you are enjoying those grandbabies. I'm finishing up a week in Ohio chasing after yet another set of nephews (sis had hernia surgery.) Six and three are fun...though exhausting. Thank goodness it warmed up a bit--though I'd forgotten how bad "mud season" was in Ohio. Makes me appreciate the need for LAWN.

With the exception of the deer factor, several of the responses have left me quite puzzled. I don't get "the difficulty factor" of incorporating edibles into the landscape. If anything, I see it as an extremely easy-to-do solution to frequent problems. Are we just having problems working outside of the box or am I just missing something?

IronBelly