Whether you have a tiny yard or a large lot, you can have a beautiful garden and eat it too! Edible landscapes filled with trees, shrubs, berries and perennial vegetables are a beautiful, sustainable method of growing food for yourself, increasing biodiversity, and attracting birds.

1. Echium vulgare (Viper’s bugloss) Danny Perez Photography, flickr
joyce_hostyn@yahoo.com
DESIGNINGedible landscapes

2. FUTURE
dreaming into being a
more beautiful
The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
~Masanobu Fukuoka
Sami Nurmi, flickr

3. Photo: James Ransom
Enjoying the flavour explosion from
hundreds of varieties of vegetables

4. Walking down streets lined with
fruit trees
Kelly Sparrow

5. Enjoying public spaces filled with
edibles instead of grass
Incroyables Comestibles Montreal

6. Melinda Young Stuart
Building urban sanctuaries for bees,
birds & wildlife

7. Imagination Grove: Matthew Browning
Designing playspaces that ignite
curiosity about the natural world

8. Manutan company, France
Growing, harvesting & sharing meals
with co-workers

9. permavieculture.com
Buying produce from a neighbourhood
market gardener

10. Stefan Sobkowiak‘s Miracle Farm (Peter McCabe/Montreal Gazette)
Shopping at the local permaculture
orchard

11. SPARK Architects
Retiring to live and help farm a
vertical agri-community

12. Surrounding ourselves with nature in
the centre of the city

13. Lisa Jackson
Healing with herbs from a local
farmacy

14. Stumbling on random acts of
free edibles
Incroyables Comestibles Montreal

15. Rebuilding community by sharing
harvests with neighbours

16. Reji, Garfield Play Park, Danny Perez Photography
NUTURE
edible landscapes

17. ParabolStudio
Local resilience in the face of climate
change

18. Restore life to the soil

19. Carol Von Canon, flickr
Leave a living legacy for future
generations

20. Can we eat our landscapes...? I wondered if it was possible to take a town like
Todmorden and focus on local food to re-engage people with the planet we
live on, create the sort of shifts in behaviour we need to live within the
resources we have, stop us thinking like disempowered victims…
~Pam Warhurst

21. WISDOM
remembering
Maya Forest Gardens Mesoamerican Research Center

22. Kuhikugu is a complex
network of over 20 cities.
Silnei L Andrade
Mayan Milpa Cycle was “one of the
most successful human inventions
ever created”
Mayan Milpa Cycle

23. Jason Ballard
Medieval potagers were a tapestry of
vegetables, fruits, flowers & herbs

24. Pioneer gardens blended indigenous
& European practices
Karen Atkins, Little House on the Prairie

25. Masanobu Fukuoka partnered with
nature with his Do Nothing approach

26. DESIGN
edible landscape
principles

27. Listen to your inner gardener
Learn from nature
Sculpt the land
Cultivate relationships
Celebrate natural beauty
Play & have fun
Practice zen & the art of editing

28. LISTEN TO YOUR INNER
GARDENER
Discover the magic in expressing who you are

29. Gardening is all about making really good
food a part of my life on a daily basis.
~Joan Caine

30. I’m not a gardener. I’ve dehydrated cacti, drowned ‘indestructible’
house plants and even obliterated my perennial oregano! BUT,
growing edibles does make me immensely happy.
~Jackie, thelovenlife.com

31. I love and identify with the common and vulgar, the feral and fierce.
I’m as likely to call myself a weedwife and plant lover as
clinical herbalist.
~Kiva Rose

32. Our object is not to grow food. It’s to grow, harvest, and eat
spectacularly delicious food - food so delicious that eating it is one of
life’s great pleasures.
~Carol Deppe, The Resilient Gardener

33. I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my
soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for
novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow.
~David Hobson

34. There is nothing we can do that is so profound a rebellion, there is no act
of eating that is so potent a blow for food quality and food system sanity –
as to take back the corn crop in our own backyards and grow, breed, eat,
and save seed of corn based upon an entirely different set of values.
~Carol Deppe
Image: Garden Anywhere Box

35. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to garden
and the whole neighbourhood gets tomatoes.
~Suburban Stone Age

36. LEARN FROM NATURE
Practice the art of observation

37. Ask what nature will
help you do

38. British Columbia’s botanical garden, Portland Monthly
Look to biodiversity for pollination &
natural pest control

39. Learn the art of three-dimensional
layering
けんたま/KENTAMA, flickr

40. Discover beautiful edibles native to
our region

41. Densely fill beds with a mix of native
and exotic edibles & ornamentals

42. Experiment with local alternatives to
edibles we can’t grow here
Graeme Anderson, flickr

43. SCULPT THE LAND
cultivate place, design mini-ecosystems

44. Shape microclimates with hugelkultur

45. Capture rainwater, attract birds &
increase biodiversity with ponds

46. Try your hand at edible water plants

47. Divert runoff into an edible rain
garden
Michael Judd, Ecologia

48. Camouflage eyesores with
edible & ornamental layers

49. Think in curves, keyholes & mandalas
for beauty & productivity
labyrinth food forest, ediblelandscapes.com

50. Grow more in a small space using a
herb spiral

51. And if all you have is a wall,
grow vertical
Vertiplant, Nederland

52. CULTIVATE
RELATIONSHIPS
one plant is just a single note

53. Plants are social beings that thrive in
communities

54. Juliet Blankespoor, Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine
Mimic the biodiversity found within
nature’s polycultures

55. Ask of each plant “what functions
does it serve?”
Michael Judd, Ecologia

56. Contrast textures, colours, shapes
layers and functions
Hedge Garden Design

57. Even black walnuts have many
friends
“One plant is just a single note; no matter how beautiful on its own, it needs
other notes to form a melody. That’s where the real music can begin.”
~Roy Diblik, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

58. CELEBRATE BEAUTY
Lift spirits, provoke smiles, add magic

59. “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to
kneel and kiss the ground.”
~Rumi

60. Treat vegetables as another element
in your garden design palette
Saxon Holt, PhotoBotanic

61. Work with different natural materials
(stone, wood, metal, brick, water)
Agricultural Urbanism

62. Treat fences, paths, edging and poles
as design elements
Jennifer Bartley

63. Choose contrasting containers & vary
their heights
Squaw Valley Herb Gardens

64. Blend a riot of textures, colours &
shapes into a living wall
of The Hairy Bikers’ Kitchen Garden, dogwooddays

65. Curve edges to soothe spirits (&
increase productive space)
gaisastable.com

66. See the beauty of mess for attracting
songbirds & pollinators
Brigitte Fortin, ecologia.com

67. Allow foliage to spill over straight
edges
pinehouseediblegardens.com

68. PLAY & HAVE FUN
Don’t be too serious, start simple,
experiment, make mistakes

69. Start simple with something easy to
grow, beautiful & edible
K. Shuyler flickr

70. Add a touch of whimsy

71. Discover the possibilities in edible
ornamentals you’re already growing

72. Play with stumps, stones & boulders
as beautiful, natural focal points

73. Allow your imagination free reign to
create what you love
Veddma, Fingering Zen

74. PRACTICE ZEN & THE
ART OF EDITING
Allow your garden to express itself
Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine

75. Edible landscapes get better every
year… grow with your garden!

76. Replace invasive plants with native,
edible super foods

77. Allow your vegetables to bolt for
beauty, birds, insects & seeds
Hedge Garden Design and Nursery

78. If trees start to shade out vegetables,
cultivate mushrooms

79. Plant densely, filling gaps to form a
living mulch (weeds are your friends!)

80. Turn hollow stumps into hugelkultur
containers

81. Adam Bindslev, flickr
PALETTES

82. WALNUT
GROVE

83. Wild roses
(Rosa spp.)
Snowberry
(Symphoricarpos)
Serviceberry
(Amelanchier canadensis)
Mulberry
(Morus rubra)
Elderberry
(Sambucus spp.)
Black locust
(Robinia pseudoacacia)
Redbud
(Cercis canadensis)
Sweet cicely
(Myrrhis odorata)
Spotted beebalm
(Monarda punctata)
Brown-eyed susan
(Rudbeckia triloba)
Columbine
(Aquilegia canadensis)
Sweet woodruff
(Galium odoratum)
Daylilies
(Hemerocallis spp.)
Woodland strawberry
(Fragaria vesca)
Solomon’s seal
(Polygonatum
biflorum)
Wild ginger
(Asarum canadense)
Eastern waterleaf
(Hydrophyllum
virginianum)
Virgin’s bower
(Clematis virginiana)

84. EAT YOUR
ORNAMENTALS
Toshihiro Gamo, Alickr

85. Hostas
Crabapple
(Malus spp.)
Linden
(Tilia cordata)
Redbud
(Cercis canadensis)
Rose of sharon
(Hibiscus syriacus)
Rugosa rose
(Rosa rugosa)
Thyme
(Thymus spp.)
Showy stonecrop
(Hylotelephium
spectabile)
Solomon’s seal
(Polygonatum biflorum)
Daylilies
(Hemerocallis spp.)
Yarrow
(Achillea millefolium)
Nannyberry
(Viburnum lentago)

86. NATIVE
BOUNTY
WhatsAllThisThen, Alickr

87. Black chokeberry
(Aronia melanocarpa)
New Jersey Tea
(Ceanothus americanus)
Mulberry
(Morus rubra)
Bayberry
(Myrica pensylvanica )
American ginseng
(Panax
quinquefolius)
Currant
(Ribes spp.)
Nodding Wild
Onion
(Allium cernuum)
Anise Hyssop
(Agastache foeniculum)
Eastern waterleaf
(Hydrophyllum
virginianum)
Wild ginger
(Asarum
canadense)
False Solomon's Seal
(Maianthemum
racemosum)
Mountain Mint
(Pycnanthemum
spp.)
Broad-leaved
toothwort
(Cardamine diphylla)
Groundnut
(Apios americana)
American cranberry
(Viburnum trilobum)
Coneflower
(Echinacea)

88. URBAN
ORCHARD

89. Lovage (Levisticum
officinale)
Wild Licorice
(Glycyrrhiza
lepidota)
Anise hyssop
(Agastache
foeniculum)
Wild Blue Indigo,
(Baptisia australis)
Rhubarb
(Rheum rhabarbarum)
Bronze fennel
(Foeniculum vulgare)
Sweet cicely
(Myrrhis
odorata)
Strawberry
(Fragaria spp.)
Violets
(Viola spp.)
Apple (Malus spp.)
‘Connell red’
‘Reinette
Simirenko’
Oregano
(Origanum spp.)
Golden garlic
(Allium moly)

90. & Shinko) Garden sorrel
(Rumex acetosa
‘Profusion’)
Lupin
(Lupine spp.)
Coneflower
(Echinacea)
Goumi
(Elaeagnus
multiflora)
Horseradish
(Armoracia rusticana)
Dill
(Anethum spp.)
Sweet woodruff
(Galium
odoratum)
Nasturtiums
(Tropaeolum)
Asian pear
(Pyrus pyrifolia ‘Kenko’
‘Yonashi’
Mountain mint
(Pycnanthemum
spp.)
Garlic
(Allium spp.)
Kiwi
(Actinidia arguta)

91. Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine
NATURE’S
PHARMACY

92. Witch Hazel
(Hamamelis
virginiana)
Prickly ash
(Zanthoxylum
americanum)
Yarrow
(Achillea millefolium)
Sage
(Salvia
officinalis)
Wild ginger
(Asarum canadense)
Motherwort
(Leonurus cardiaca)
Cow parsnip
(Heracleum
maximum)
Feverfew
(Tanacetum
parthenium)
Ginkgo
(Ginkgo biloba)
Lungwort
(Pycnanthemum spp.)
Wild Bergamot
(Monarda fistulosa)
Stinging nettles
(Urtica dioica)
St. John’s Wort
(Hypericum
perforatum)
Hawthorn
(Crataegus spp.)
Fringe tree
(Chionanthus virginicus)

93. MEDIEVAL
POTAGER
Jason Ballard

94. Skirret
(Sium sisarum)
Parsley
(Petroselinum
crispum)
Chaste tree
(Vitex agnus-castus)
Good king henry
(Chenopodium
bonus-henricus)
Betony
(Stachys officinalis)
Parsnip
(Pastinaca sativa)
Valerian
(Valeriana
officinalis)
Medlar
(Mespilus germanica)
Thyme
(Pycnanthemum spp.)
Fava beans
(Vicia faba)
Mandrake
(Mandragora
officinarum)
Salad burnet
(Sanguisorba minor)
Grapevines
(Vitis spp.)
Lavender
(Lavandula spp.)

95. ASIAN COOKING &
HERBAL
Steph Zabel

96. Yellowhorn
(Xanthoceras sorbifolia)
Cornelian Cherry
(Cornus mas)
Chinese cedar
(Toona sinensis) Five flavour berry
(Schisandra chinensis)
Garlic chives
(Allium tuberosum )
Angelica, Korean
(Angelica gigas)
Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum simulans)
Goumi (Elaeagnus multiflora)
Chinese Artichoke
(Stachys affinis)
Japanese Plum Yew
(Cephalotaxus
harringtonia )
Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba)

97. EDIBLE
FENCE
metrofiledguide

98. False Indigo
(Amorpha fruticosa)
Wild gooseberry
(Ribes hirtellum)
Hazelnut hedgerow
(Corylus americana)
Buffaloberry
(Shepherdia canadensis)
Snowberry
(Symphoricarpos)
Wild Leek
(Allium tricoccum)
American pokeweed
(Phytolacca americana)
Great angelica
(Angelica
atropurpurea)
Woodland
strawberry
(Fragaria vesca)
Yarrow
(Achillea millefolium)
Wild grape
(Vitis riparia)
Black Raspberry
(Rubus occidentalis)
Witherod/Wild raisin
(Viburnum cassinoides)
Pagoda dogwood
(Cornus alternifolia)
Wild plum
(Prunus americana)
Prickly Wild Rose
(Rosa acicularis)

99. When everybody is going the wrong way, are you
brave enough to go the true way? A man can
transform the world's agriculture from what he
learns from an apple tree.
~Akinori Kimura, What I Learned From The Apple Trees
Theophilos Papadopoulos, flickr

100. Kate Ter Haar, flickr
unleash your inner
gardener
joyce_hostyn@yahoo.com