Productive Gardens

Gardens, along with being aesthetically pleasing, can be productive.  The most common productive garden is by far the vegetable garden. There are, however, many garden trees, shrubs, perennials and groundcovers which are both edible and attractive enough for use in your landscape design.

Consider planting trees and shrubs which produce fruit.  Apple trees and pear trees are great deciduous trees which flower in the spring and produce fruit in late summer and fall.  There also treasured for the fall foliage.

Edible plants can even be incorporated into the traditional shrub border. Quince, for example, fits in perfectly in the sunny border with its beautiful peach colored flowers in the spring. Blueberries are an ideal shrub for naturalizing the landscape.  Their also perfect as backdrop to the rest of the garden. Plant them along the edge of the forest as a transition plant between the existing natural landscape and garden.

Herb gardens are another productive garden, which can be grown in containers.  Useful as they are herbs are as beautiful; in the garden as perennials or annuals.  Many actually are perennial and will return year after year.

Instead of the more traditional groundcovers, try planting strawberries. They’re fast growers and can spread quite a bit over the course of a season or two.

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