Edible landscaping may be the hottest trend in garden design right now.  There were 5 new books about it reviewed by American Gardener, the magazine of the American Horticulture Society in its last issue. It was covered several times on Martha Stewart’s show last season, and at least one of the shows was about replanting your lawn completely with edibles.

I’ve never taken quite such a dramatic approach, being from a colder climate where edibles won’t grow year-round outdoors.  I also don’t have that much sun (although I’d have a much better vegetable garden if my husband would let me rip up some of his precious–and now drought killed–lawn).

This is a good portion of my “edible” garden.  It’s not incorporated into the landscape because I don’t have a lot of sun, and, where I do have the sun is half an acre away and I don’t want to go that distance every time I want an herb snippet or two.  This is also way more convenient for moving onto the sun porch–the world’s largest cold frame–for wintering over.

This is the other portion of my “edible” landscaping–where I’ve incorporated the vegetables into the wildlife garden.  This is the updated photo that I showed on Tuesday–notice that the black-eyed susans have bloomed and faded.

Along with that pole-bean tower, you can also see the african blue basil in flower.  What you can’t see are two ‘black krim’ tomatoes, some more parsley and chives and society garlic and leeks.  This is the stuff I don’t mind deliberately going down to the garden to harvest.  And since most of it is hidden behind a mass of black-eyed susans, no one even knows it’s there, except the wildlife.

This is the garden that is literally less than 2′ from the road so it’s important that I make it attractive as well as functional.  I quite often get compliments when I’m working in it so I guess I’ve succeeded–at least in the neighborhood’s eyes.