Everything you grow in your yard can be eaten.
Edible landscaping — not to be confused with traditional vegetable or herb gardens — is one of the growing trends in residential yard design according to local landscape designers. Edible plants, bushes and trees can be picked for food or be added to drinks.
"Plantings have to be aesthetic and gorgeous, but they can also be productive, " said landscape architect Kate Kennen, owner of Charlestown-based Offshoots. "You could be growing something that you could use."
Kennen says she is creating a lot of edible landscapes with plantings such as juneberry trees that provide sweet berries, an attractive option to traditional fruit trees that attract a lot of bugs. Another favorite are basswood trees, also known as salad trees, whose leaves, buds and flowers can be eaten.
"We did a 'mint and mojito' garden for a Jamaica Plain apartment project to appeal to younger people who love craft cocktails," said Kennen, who says cocktail gardens include mints, oregano, lavender, chives and sage.
She's created tea plant gardens as well as an edible garden geared to children with tags on a ring binder to help them identify when edible plants can be eaten.
Another growing residential landscaping trend is low-mow or no-mow lawns, said Andrea Nilsen of Boston's Nilsen Landscape Design.
"Traditional lawns are intensely needy — water, fertilizing, chemicals, mowing," Nilsen said.
Nilsen uses clumping grasses that look like lawn but don't grow and groundcover plantings in lieu of grass. In one Belmont project, Nilsen used huge beds of creeping thyme and barren strawberry as a lawn substitute.
Kennen added that custom-blended seed can provide an attractive lawn that only has to be mowed every 4 to 6 weeks.
Homeowners are also looking to cut down on irrigation costs by using plants that require less watering as well as harvesting storm water for irrigation.
"A third of potable water is poured on landscape, it's a waste," said Kennen. "People want to do less watering."
Low-water plants are also being increasing used on urban rooftop gardens, Nilsen said.
Kennen has done several water-cleansing gardens, where the roots of plants are used to clean toxins in groundwater. She also has expertise in a growing trend called phytoremediation that uses plants to remove contaminants from soil.
"I did a garden in Weston with plants that absorb arsenic left there when it was an orchard," said Kennen, who is writing a book on the subject.
Even the traditional vegetable garden is getting a new twist.
"Usually vegetable gardens are relegated to the backyard, but I did a project where I put the vegetable beds in the front yard because it worked better there" said Nilsen, who is also designing more habitat gardens, with plants that attract honeybees or butterflies. "People want their landscaping to have more of a purpose."
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