A beautiful, and tasty, yard

Edible landscapes are all the rage in home and gardening. Homeowners not only want a yard that provides beauty, but one that is also functional. Our latest project at Discovery Gardens is installing a demonstration landscape that meets these desires. Over the past few decades, Florida vegetable gardens and fruit trees typically looked utilitarian rather than beautiful. The goal of our edible landscape is to highlight attractive fruits and veggies and incorporate them into a landscape along with ornamental plants.

We are currently working on sidewalks and educational kiosks, but we will soon install plants into the landscape. Planting is one of the last steps for our garden and the one that makes everything come together. I would like to highlight a few of my favorite edible landscape plants.

The loquat is one tree that meets many needs in the landscape. It is evergreen, drought tolerant, adds a tropical look and even provides fruit. This plant can serve as a large structural plant in the landscape that acts as a wonderful backdrop for other plantings.

According to the University of Florida, one loquat tree can produce anywhere from 35 to 300 pounds of fruit per year. If you want one that produces delicious fruit, you need to resist the urge to grow it from seed and purchase one from a nurseryman that specializes in fruit trees. If you grow from seed, you could get lucky and have large, tasty fruit, but you may also end up with small, unappealing fruit.

Pineapple is another edible fruit that is rewarding to grow. They are so easy to produce that my husband and I cut the tops off of pineapples, let them air dry for a day or two and stick them directly in potting soil in containers in the backyard.

They get watered by Mother Nature or whenever I remember to water them. To grow this refreshing fruit in your landscape, plant several as a low border or place plants in a container. Remember that you have to be patient as it can take pineapples 18 to 24 months to produce fruit.

For an attractive vegetable plant, try growing eggplant either singularly or as a group of three. If you want to try eggplant this fall, you must plant them as a large transplant now or wait until early next spring. They will suffer from cold damage, so if you plant them at the wrong time of year you may not get any fruit at all. Varieties that we have tried include Black Beauty and Ichiban. Eggplant can be purple, white or varying patterns of purple and white. Both the flower and the fruit of eggplant can bring color to your yard.