Your Guide To Edimental Gardening

Something my Grandma taught me when I was young came to my rescue one evening when playing a game with friends. I successfully managed to answer that the poisonous part of a rhubarb plant is the leaf. I got most of the other answers wrong for the rest of the game but I felt triumphant with one strong answer. As a child, my Grandma would send us into her garden to collect some rhubarb, and we knew the instructions were to always pull and twist the stem from the base (never cut) and to twist off the leaves, putting them on the compost bin before bringing the stems inside. As the leaves are the poisonous part, she never wanted them to come into the house.

The concept of an ‘edimental’ garden isn’t new to me, nor will it be new to you, however we wouldn’t have known it as such. My Grandparents always had edible plants mixed in with their ornamental flowers as was so common, and that way of gardening has been rebranded (along with so many other things) and is now known as ‘edimental’ gardening. When a plant is both edible as well as attractive enough to be thought of as ornamental – bish bash bosh, a new word has been created.

I’m always yabbering on about how important it is to get the most out of your garden space, regardless of how big or small it may be. Edimental gardening brings you the most value and satisfaction you can get from your outdoor space in a way that works for you. Whether that’s the feeling of satisfaction walking through your garden and picking an apple fresh from your tree or reaching out from your comfortable seat to pick some mint for your mojito.

This way of gardening is way more informal than specifically growing edible plants – often that requires a dedicated space for crops in straight lines to be weeded neatly around each plant. Edimental gardening will most likely look more like you ‘foraging’ in your garden for berries, leaves, edible flowers etc. that are dotted around your garden, harvesting throughout the season as and when they ripen or when you’re in need.

Spot the rhubarb!

How to start

Whether you’re starting your garden from scratch or wanting to tweak your established space, when you’re creating a planting plan, you need to consider the following groups: trees, tall structural shrubs (1.5m+), smaller shrubs (<1m), perennials, ground cover & bulbs. This ensures you get great visual layering throughout the garden with my own main focus always being on ensuring interest during every month of the year.

The autumn is a good time to be thinking of edimentals as it’s a prime time to be planting a lot of fruit trees. Fruit trees are a gorgeous addition to a garden as they can provide the often needed height for a bit of drama, incredible autumn foliage and a bonus of fruit to suit your own taste. There are a few considerations to make when planting a tree including ‘right plant, right place’ and such. One of my tips is to be mindful not to plant fruit trees where they’ll overhang hard landscaped seating areas as the fallen fruit can create a mess and a potentially slippery situation.  

There will be a tree that can suit every garden. Step over apple trees are perfect when you’re short on space and don’t need the height, fig trees like to have their roots restricted so will be happy in a planter (suitably sized) providing such beautifully shaped foliage and cherry trees can provide you with a blaze of autumn colour.

From the structure of the trees, you then need to gradually move through the groups choosing plants that provide a beautiful combination of interest throughout the year considering flowering times, foliage diversity and aspect compatibility.   

Fig planter

 Considerations to make your space perfect for you

As it’s edimental and not just ornamental, you need to think about what you might actually want to eat. I’ve made the mistake of growing various vegetables from seed purely because I felt like I ‘should’ and ended up with an abundance of radishes that were very pretty and easy to grow, despite the fact that I don’t bloody like radishes!  Your growing space is valuable so you want to grow produce that you’ll cherish.

Your lifestyle as well as your tastes should influence your planting choices. If every summer sees you barbecuing in the sunshine for your family, it’s likely that a good selection of herbs such as rosemary and thyme near your grill would be a great idea. When your time in your garden is mostly spent with a cup of herbal tea and a book, planting some lemon verbena and chamomile could be a good plan for drying to make your own tea.

On the flipside, remember it’s edimental and not just edible, so you also need to think about the ornamental factors. Pick planting that works within your garden scheme. Think about the foliage of the plants and getting a nice composition that compliments one another in the planting bed. Coming back to rhubarb, those large leaves create a fantastic statement near the front of a border, using the backdrop of finer foliage with differing textures and shades of green.

Select plants that provide the style you’re aiming for within your garden. The planting within a garden can really carry through the vibe and bring everything together. In my own garden, I use a lot of vintage galvanised planters, rustic wooden features and mixed materials in paving which gives quite a cottagecore, I could even say hobbitcore vibe. If I then used Mediterranean and tropical plants in the garden, it would create mixed signals and end up looking too cluttered. Along with keeping to a calm colour pallet, I have plants such as roses, buddleia, rosemary, ferns, fruit trees, rhubarb (of course), pumpkins etc. to keep the atmosphere and aesthetic cohesive.

Planting ideas

One of my favourite edimentals in my garden is sage. I’ve been told I can romanticise things a lot and I know this is likely to be one of those cases. I’m absolutely not going to apologise for the joy I get when I trot out into my garden on Christmas day midway through cooking the family dinner, at least one bucks fizz in and wander through the garden to collect some sage leaves to decorate the stuffing.  If you’re looking for a bit of statement plant for a particular spot, I really like the purpley colour of tricolour sage.

If your garden is in need of some well balanced structure year round, using evergreen plants with some height can be a good idea. Place the plants in key positions in your garden to maximise your views or hide unsightly spots. You don’t want to block your view of your established apple tree and miss out on seeing that springtime blossom. On the other hand, you don’t want to be staring at your neighbour in their lit up bedroom on dark winters mornings (or maybe you do, I don’t know, I won’t judge).

Consider the best place for your evergreen shrubs in the perfect spaces to cover fences/sheds/unattractive neighbours before you get them in the ground. For your evergreen structure you could choose a Bay Tree ‘Laurus Nobilis’ for the fragrant leaves or ‘Arbutus Unedo’ aka the strawberry tree for the attractive and scented flowers which are followed by the round red fruits which can be used to make jams.

Rosemary is a great option for lower growing evergreen structure and fits perfectly within the ‘edimental’ category. I use this a lot in my gardens as they can be shaped when necessary, trimmed to use in cooking or cocktails and even flowers for a short while each year which pollinators appreciate. There are many different varieties to choose for the perfect spot, just make sure to check the growing habit when choosing your plants.

If you’re looking for a bold choice, artichokes could be a good addition to your outdoor space. With their strong silvery foliage, you couldn’t be blamed if you forget about the edible element of this structural plant as I find them so incredibly strong visually.

It’s not all about the foliage, of course. The flowers of the runner bean ‘Celebration’ are perfectly peachy and provide a beautifully ornamental element before producing succulent beans. Whilst we’re talking about beans, have you grown purple French beans? ‘Cosse Violette’ is a stunning pole bean whereas ‘Purple Queen’ bush beans are a good dwarf variety.

The berries of the Japanese Wineberry  ‘Rubus phoenicolasius’, are unbelievably sweet as well as attractive. The bright red stems shine throughout the winter and can be a beautiful sight when climbing up a wall, especially when trained in attractive patterns.  

Keep your visitors happy

This wouldn’t be one of my gardening guides without mentioning your garden wildlife. All the planting we’ve already discussed is going to be of benefit to someone in your garden, whether it’s the pollinators enjoying the flowers, the leaf cutter bees enjoying the foliage, the moths enjoying the night flowering plants, the bats enjoying the insects – the list goes on.

There’s a whole ecosystem to be built within your garden and you’ve simply got to go with the flow. There’s going to be some wildlife you wouldn’t initially want to attract, however that visitor might be the key to attracting someone else that you do want. If you’d like butterflies in your garden, you also need to accommodate the caterpillars that will eventually turn into those beautiful butterflies. And as butterfly numbers were almost 50% down this year on previous years, they really need our help more than ever.

Nasturtiums definitely fall into the ‘edimental’ category and growing them as a sacrificial plant is a cracking idea for caterpillars as well as for you. There are many caterpillars that will be particularly attracted to the foliage. When they’re eating your nasturtium foliage, it means they’re not eating some of your other, maybe more ‘precious’ plants. There’s no offence intended to nasturtiums with that sentiment, it’s just because they can be grown really easily and cheaply from seed so you can have as many as you like! For the plants that aren’t nibbled, nasturtiums are a great allrounder as you can eat the leaves, flowers and seeds. The flowers of nasturtiums look particularly pretty scattered in salads.

Glorious nasturtiums

When it comes down to it, there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to edimental gardening, in my eyes. Not everything in the garden HAS to be edible and not everything HAS to be ornamental. The key to any successful garden is to go with what your heart wants. This is YOUR garden space and you want to get the most out of it so make it as pretty or as tasty as you can!