22 Ornamental Plants to Grow in an Edible Foodscape Garden

Flower gardens are swell, and vegetable patches are dandy, but if you want to get the best of both worlds, edible foodscape gardens offer even more benefits!

Amaranth and seeds on a table — What's better than a beautiful garden? A beautiful garden you can eat!

Most flower gardens are designed with purely ornamental plants; however, if you know where to look, there are lots of gorgeous specimen plants that are also edible and delicious. Incorporating edible foodscape plants into your landscape design makes garden beds much more functional, and it can help you grow more fruit and vegetables in even the smallest space gardens. If you’ve ever dreamed of strolling through your garden and picking berries, veggies, and other edible plants, but you don’t want to sacrifice the aesthetic value of your garden, these edible foodscaping plants are for you!

Jump to:

22 ornamental plants to grow in an edible foodscape garden

Edible plants climbing a trellis — You can build a bed from all edible plants, or incorporate edible plants with your ornamentals.

Foodscape gardens are a relatively old concept, but they’ve been gaining popularity in recent years. While there are many ways to design a foodscape, these gardens typically feature edible plants that are incorporated into ornamental beds. Depending on your tastes, foodscape gardens can be concocted with only edibles, or you can mix edible plants in with ornamentals for a more complex design that offers both beauty and functionality.

1. Amaranth

Amaranth growing in a garden — Amaranth, an edible grain plant, is often grown as a cutting plant or ornamental plant.

Plant name:	Amaranth
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate to low
Growing zone:	Zones 2 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Annual but readily self-sow

Pretty as a picture, amaranth comes in fabulous shades of green, gold, and a fuchsia pink color, and amaranth’s sturdy stems make it a reliable backdrop to mixed planting arrangements. Depending on your garden size, you can opt for tall amaranth varieties that grow up to 8’ high, or you can select dwarf cultivars that are perfectly sized for container growing. ‘Red Amaranth’ is a particularly showy variety that’s prized for its vibrant red stems and burgundy-toned leaves and seed heads, but ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ is also a population option that’s known for its trailing seed heads.

While you can cherish amaranth plants as ornamentals alone, their edible leaves are rich in iron, and they make tasty additions to salads and sautés. If you don’t want to harvest amaranth leaves, you can allow the plant to go to seed and harvest amaranth’s edible seeds in autumn. Amaranth seeds can be cooked in pilaf, porridge, and other dishes, but wild birds love nibbling on them in the garden, too!

2. Elderberry

Elderberries on a bush — Elderberry offers nice green shrubbery, pretty creamy white flowers, and attractive edible purple berries--something all season long!

Plant name:	Elderberry
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 7
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Elderberry is famously used to make elderberry syrup, but elderberry berries can also be infused into vinegar or cooked into pies. Elderberry flowers are also edible, and they’re often used to flavor cocktails. However, if you intend to use elderberries in your recipes, it’s essential that you cook your berries properly, as raw elderberries can contain cyanide, which is toxic!

Aside from their uses in the kitchen, elderberries are attractive shrubs that grow up to 13’ tall, and they can be used to provide extra garden privacy or accentuate lower-growing plants. When elderberries bloom in spring, their lacy, white flowers are sure to delight garden goers, and their autumnal berries are favorite snack foods for wild birds. Even better, elderberries are native to the United States, and they’re host plants for over 29 species of caterpillars.

3. Sunflowers

Sunflowers growing seeds — Sunflowers produce tasty seeds for both human and bird and wildlife consumption.

Plant name:	Sunflowers
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 2 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Annual

One of the most classic foodscaping plants around, sunflowers can be grown in vegetable gardens, but they can hold their own in ornamental beds, too. Depending on your tastes, you can enjoy sunflowers for their edible seeds, or you can cook their flowerheads whole right on your backyard grill. Of course, sunflowers are also simply pretty plants, which is why many gardeners grow them just for cut flowers!

Most gardeners are familiar with golden-orange sunflowers with chocolatey brown centers, but you can find sunflowers in an array of shades, including white, bronze, and maroon. Even better, sunflowers range in height from massive ‘Mammoth’ sunflowers that stretch over 12’ high to dwarf sunflowers that stay under 1’ tall. Plus, birds and pollinators love sunflowers, too!

4. Roses

Rose hips on a rose bush — Rose petals have culinary uses, but their fruit--the hips--are what are enjoyed most often as edible parts of rose bushes.

Plant name:	Roses
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 5 to 9, most varieties
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

One of the most popular plants to grow in flower gardens, roses are mostly kept for their delicate and colorful blooms. But at the end of the growing season, you can also enjoy roses for their edible rosehips as well!

Roses are actually related to apples, so it’s no surprise that their rosehips are delicious (after all, they are technically a fruit!) Rosehips can be cooked into jams, jellies, and teas, but they’re also delicious in desserts and other sweet treats. While beach roses (Rosa rugosa) are the most common rose bushes grown for rosehips, all rose varieties produce edible rosehips, but you may not see them if you prune rose shrubs too often!

5. Cardoons and artichokes

Edible cardoons — Cardoons are edible members of the thistle family.

Plant name:	Cardoons and artichokes
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 7 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Many vegetable gardeners are familiar with artichokes, but growers may not be as likely to recognize the close cousin of the artichoke: the cardoon. Both artichokes and cardoons belong to the thistle family, and their brilliant purple flowers make stately additions to vegetable gardens and ornamental beds alike. But best of all, both of these plants are edible!

Artichokes are harvested for their edible buds, which can be steamed or simmered and then broken down into tasty artichoke hearts. Cardoons are used a bit differently in the kitchen, and although these plants yield pretty flowers, cardoons are actually grown for their edible stems. As scrumptious as both of these plants are, if you don’t harvest their flowers, these plants will attract both birds and pollinators to your garden beds!

6. Scarlet runner beans

Scarlet runner beans in bloom — People often grow scarlet runner beans for their colorful flowers, but they produce edible pods, too.

Plant name:	Scarlet runner beans
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 7 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Short-lived perennial

Many bean plants can be used as ornamentals, but if you want your foodscape garden to make a big impact, scarlet runner beans are hard to beat. These flashy legumes are mostly known for their bright red flowers, which bloom from mid-summer to fall, but these plants also produce edible bean pods. Depending on your tastes, you can harvest scarlet runner bean pods when they’re still immature and use them like green beans, or you can allow the pods to ripen fully on the plant and use the bean seeds like kidney beans.

If you’re still on the fence about growing scarlet runner beans, these plants can be used as a living hedge for extra garden privacy. Fast-growing and hardy, scarlet runner bean vines can grow over 15’ long, and they can trail over garden trellises and cattle panels, too. Plus, these plants can grow as perennials in warm areas, but they’re mostly cultivated as annuals.

7. Daylilies

Yellow daylily flowers — Daylilies are an edible that you can grow in shady spots.

Plant name:	Daylilies
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 2 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

A top choice for shade gardens, daylilies are low-maintenance plants that are commonly grown for their trumpet-shaped flowers, which come in glorious shades of orange, pink, yellow, purple, and red. Daylilies are native to Asia, but they’ve become so naturalized in many areas of the United States that many people assume they’re native plants. When planted on their own, daylilies make attractive accent plants, but these stunners really come alive when they’re sown in large groupings.

Despite their name, daylilies are not true lilies, but they are edible! All parts of daylilies can be eaten, including their tubers, which can be boiled like potatoes, and their flower petals, which can be used as salad accents. However, many home chefs agree that immature daylily flower buds are the tastiest part of the plant, and they’re commonly used in stir fries and Asian fare.

8. Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus)

Yellow flowering Jerusalem artichokes — Jerusalem artichokes, aka sunchokes, produce edible tubers similar to potatoes.

Plant name:	Jerusalem artichoke
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 8
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Also known as sunchokes, Jerusalem artichokes may look like sunflowers, but their sunny yellow blooms are smaller in size than the standard sunflower. These plants make lovely cut flowers, and pollinators of all sorts enjoy their blooms in the garden, but Jerusalem artichokes are also edible. If you’re new to working with these plants, Jerusalem artichokes yield plump tubers, which can be eaten just like potatoes!

Tough as nails Jerusalem artichoke plants can grow perennially even in chilly zone 3, and they’re quite drought tolerant, too. If you live in an area where the ground doesn’t freeze solid, you can dig up Jerusalem artichoke tubers even in the middle of winter, but many growers harvest Jerusalem artichokes in fall after a light frost, which sweetens their flavor. As lovely as these plants are, they can sometimes grow aggressively, so it may be wise to dig up your Jerusalem artichoke patches every spring to keep these plants from spreading too fast.

9. Borage (Borago officinalis)

Purple flowering borage — Borage is a highly beneficial plant in many ways.

Plant name:	Borage
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 10
Annual or perennial?	Annual

Borage is a top-notch pollinator plant, and it’s often grown in vegetable gardens as a companion plant for tomatoes and other nightshades. Part of this has to do with the fact that borage plants are simply pretty to look at. However, these plants also help to repel common nightshade pests, including the dreaded tomato hornworm!

While there’s no doubt that borage is a useful plant in veggie beds, borage will fit right into ornamental foodscapes, too. Not only do these plants produce darling, periwinkle blue blooms, but borage flowers and leaves make interesting additions to salads and other dishes that could use a colorful garnish. And, best of all, these plants taste a bit like fresh cucumber!

10. Red orach (Atriplex hortensis)

Harvesting red orach — Burgundy leaves of red orach look lovely in any garden.

Plant name:	Red orach
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 4 to 8
Annual or perennial?	Annual

A close relative of lamb’s quarters, red orach is a less common choice for gardens, but that doesn’t make it any less spectacular. With vivid, burgundy leaves, red orach makes a colorful accent to vegetable beds, but it can also be grown in containers or mixed into flower gardens. Thanks to its unique collection, red orach looks particularly striking when planted beside other dark beauties, like purple fountain grass, but it also pairs well with amaranth and millet.

Red orach can be used just like spinach, and you can eat the plant’s leaves raw in salads or cooked into your favorite cozy dishes. When grown from seed, red orach is ready to harvest about 45 days after planting, and mature plants can stretch from 4 to 10’ tall!

11. Herbs

Various herbs growing in containers — Herbs of any type are an obvious good choice for an edible landscape garden.

Plant name:	Herbs
Light requirements:	Depends on variety
Water requirements:	Depends on variety
Growing zone:	Depends on variety
Annual or perennial?	Depends on variety

Herbs come in many fabulous shapes and colors, and you can design entire gardens using only herb plants, or you can plant herbs throughout established flower beds for an extra pop of color. Today, there are tons of culinary herbs to choose from when growing a foodscape garden, including chives, sage, lavender, thyme, and tarragon. But if you want your herbs to really come alive as ornamentals, it’s best to let your plants flower.

Some herbs will maintain their flavor even after flowering, but herbs like cilantro and dill may not taste as good once they begin to bloom. As a result, you may want to plant more herbs than you intend to eat and allow some to bloom while keeping others neatly pruned for eating. Even small-space foodscape gardeners can enjoy herbs since these plants grow beautifully in pots and in larger garden beds, too.

12. Millet

Purple stems of millet with seed heads — There are many varieties of millet that look lovely in edible landscapes, ranging from dwarf sizes to as big as eight feet tall.

Plant name:	Millet
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate to low
Growing zone:	Zones 2 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Annual

Like amaranth, millet is mostly cultivated as a grain, but its large flowerheads make it an alluring plant to keep in ornamental foodscapes as well. Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is one of the most popular types of millets to grow in home gardens, and this millet variety can grow up to 8’ tall. For even more variety, gardeners can also try out dwarf millet or purple millet, which are ideal for sprucing up container gardens in fall.

While gardeners can harvest millet for its edible seedheads, if you’d like to attract birds to your garden, you may want to leave some millet plants untouched in the fall. Many sorts of songbirds love eating millet seeds right off of the plant, but millet seedheads can also be picked and dried and then hung up right on your bird feeder to attract birds like towhees, quail, and sparrows.

13. Asparagus

Red berries on a female asparagus plant — Asparagus grows into tall, ferny plants. The females bear red berries, but those berries are not edible.

Plant name:	Asparagus
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 8
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Asparagus plants are staples in vegetable gardens, but they can add interesting textures to ornamental beds as well. While most gardeners are familiar with asparagus spears, which are the edible parts of the plant, asparagus plants also produce lovely fern-like leaves and females produce bright red berries. Although these parts of the plant aren’t edible, they can be used to accentuate garden designs, and they’ll give you something to enjoy as you wait for your asparagus spears to grow!

14. Hostas

Large green leaved hosta plants — Hostas are popular in ornamental gardens, but they are edible, too and taste great in a stir fry!

Plant name:	Hostas
Light requirements:	Shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 9
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Like daylilies, hostas are commonly kept in shade gardens, although hostas can tolerate some sun too. Most growers cultivate hostas for their colorful leaves, which come in both solid green and variegated options. But hostas also produce dainty, tubular flowers from May through September, and these blooms are always a hit with pollinators.

Although many gardeners grow hostas purely as ornamentals, hostas are entirely edible, and they are often used in stir-fries. Leaves have a mild, lettuce-like flavor, but young shoots taste more like asparagus. Just be sure to harvest hostas early because slugs and snails like eating these plants, too!

15. Berries

Plant name:	Berries
Light requirements:	Depends on variety
Water requirements:	Depends on variety
Growing zone:	Depends on variety
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

There are many types of edible berries, but some berry plants are more ornamental than others. Purple flowering raspberry, for instance, produces fewer edible berries than standard raspberry plants, but its oversized blooms are more likely to draw the eye to a foodscape garden. Currants and gooseberries are also charming ornamentals, and they can be grown on their own as specimen plants or sown in flower gardens as foundation plants.

For even more options, there are many types of berries that can be used as edible groundcovers, including strawberries and winterberries. Adding a blend of berry plants to your foodscape will help you curate a more complex garden design, but it will also give you more tasty berries to enjoy on your dinner table!

16. Chia

Edible purple flowering chia plant — Both the seeds and leaves of the chia plant are edible.

Plant name:	Chia
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate to low
Growing zone:	Zones 9 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Most people are familiar with chia pets, which are commonly sold as novelties, and they come in tons of fun shapes. But chia seeds can also be grown in garden beds, and both the seeds and leaves of chia plants are edible.

Chia leaves taste a lot like spinach, while chia seeds are packed with protein, and they can be added to breakfast bowls and smoothies. With rich green leaves and spire-shaped, purple flowers, chia plants add plenty of color and interest to foodscape gardens, too. And these plants even grow as perennials in warm locations!

17. Fruit trees

Fruit tree in full bloom — Fruit trees are an obvious choice for an attractive, food-producing plant. Especially when in bloom!

Plant name:	Fruit trees
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Depends on variety
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Many different fruit trees can be grown in gardens, including apples, pears, and native paw-paw trees. Some of these plants produce colorful flowers in addition to their delicious fruit, and many dwarf fruit tree varieties can even be grown in pots! Container growing is a good choice if you have a small space foodscape garden, but you can also try keeping an espalier fruit tree, which works particularly well in urban gardens.

18. Calendula (Calendula officinalis)

Yellow calendula in bloom — Among other uses, calendulas are often used as toppings on salads.

Plant name:	Calendula
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 9 to 11
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Calendula plants are commonly grown as medicinals, but calendula blooms can also be used as edible salad toppers and garnishes. Easy to grow from seed and hardy to boot, calendula plants bloom reliably from summer to fall, and their flowers can even be used to brew a homemade fabric dye! If you don’t want to eat your calendula flowers, you can keep them purely for their ornamental appeal and relish their orange and yellow petal colors in your flower beds.

19. Swiss chard

Swiss chard with purple stalks — Swiss Chard comes in a range of lovely colors that will brighten up any foodscape.

Plant name:	Swiss chard
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 6 to 10
Annual or perennial?	Biennial

Most people know that Swiss chard is edible and it can be cooked just like kale and spinach. But unlike other leafy greens, Swiss chard boasts colorful stems, which look right at home in ornamental foodscapes.

Depending on your garden size, you can keep Swiss chard right in your flower beds, or you can grow these leafy greens in planters. And since Swiss chard plants are super cold hardy, you can even cultivate them all year round in certain areas!

20. Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

Tall spikes of anise hyssop — Anise hyssop has an anise-like flavor that works well in teas and desserts.

Plant name:	Anise hyssop
Light requirements:	Full sun to part shade
Water requirements:	Moderate to low
Growing zone:	Zones 4 to 8
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Anise hyssop is a popular plant to grow in pollinator gardens since its tall, purple flowers are highly attractive to bees and other beneficial insects. However, anise hyssop is a flavorful edible plant, too, and its leaves exude a delicious, anise-like flavor when added to teas and desserts. On top of that, anise hyssop is naturally resistant to deer and drought, and it grows happily even in areas as cold as USDA growing zone 4.

21. Violets (Viola odorata)

Purple violets in flower — One popular way to use violets is in making infused vinegar.

Plant name:	Violets
Light requirements:	Part shade, can handle full sun in cool areas
Water requirements:	Moderate to low
Growing zone:	Zones 3 to 9
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

Common violets are delicate plants that often find their way into gardens naturally. But you can cultivate these easygoing flowers intentionally, too, and use them as colorful accent plants or as a low-maintenance groundcover in your foodscape. Both the leaves and flowers of common violets are edible, and they can be blended into salads, infused into cooking oils and vinegar, or used to garnish desserts and baked goods.

22. Red Malabar spinach

Climbing Malabar spinach — Many people grow red Malabar spinach because it can take heat and is resistant to bolting.

Plant name:	Red Malabar spinach
Light requirements:	Full sun
Water requirements:	High to moderate
Growing zone:	Zones 7 and up
Annual or perennial?	Perennial

If you love spinach but hate dealing with bolted spinach plants, red Malabar spinach may be just the plant you’ve been looking for. Heat tolerant and exotically pretty, red Malabar spinach features bright red stems and a climbing growth habit, which allows the plant to trail over trellises and garden archways. Mature Malabar spinach plants can grow between 8 and 10’ tall, and while their edible leaves taste much like spinach, they don’t bolt in heat, so you can harvest these plants all summer long!

Summary

A woman carrying a harvest of sunchoke tubers — Foodscape gardens give the best of both worlds and make great use of space.

Foodscape gardens are a smart way to utilize space since they provide gardeners with both stunning flowers and edible foods. Unlike vegetable gardens, which are typically confined to raised planters and dedicated inground beds, foodscape plantings can be spread throughout your entire yard, allowing you to grow even more edible food crops. And, best of all, many foodscaping plants can tolerate shadier conditions than standard vegetables, giving you even more planting options!

Some gardeners may elect to grow just a few foodscaping plants in their flower beds, but other gardeners may decide to devote their entire backyard to foodscaping. However, if you want to get even more value out of your foodscape, try incorporating some elements of permaculture into your garden design. Permaculture systems blend wonderfully with foodscaping and they can help you slash your water bills and use even less fertilizer in your foodscape garden!