Foodscaping is a wonderful way of incorporate more edibles into landscape design so as to do good both humans and the environment . The conception of edible garden plan is becoming especially popular in residential district garden and other shared garden blank , but it can also be a powerful tool in the home garden as you’re able to see in this stake onedible edge .

Last class , All America Selectionsset a challenge for gardeners : to create a beautiful and useable garden ground on the theme of “ foodscaping , ” or landscape with edible plants . AAS allow the participating gardeners with seeds and it was up to the individual garden squad to come up with , industrial plant , and care for a excogitation that incorporate ornamentals and edibles into one cohesive , beautiful garden conception .

The AAS Foodscaping Design Challenge participants are all large , public gardens , but their beautiful and practical edible innovation idea can serve as inspiration for small - scale base garden foodscaping as well .

Award Winning Foodscape Gardens

Here is a peek at the first - place winners of each class . The category are determined by how many visitor a garden has per class , so these three gardens give a safe scope of how foodscaping can be done efficaciously at different scale .

Category 3: Over 100,000 visitors per year

Winner: Dow Gardens, Midland, Michigan

Dow Gardens Children ’s Garden is a vegetable and flower display garden reserve node to see and interact with the edible and flowering plants ( yes , it is okay to pick and wipe out ! ) . This year , the garden had 30 varieties of AAS honor - deliver the goods plant grow to create its dynamic , colorful , and eye - trip up video display .

Here , you’re able to see a bird ’s eye scene of the garden when it was first planted . Even at this point it looked quite adorable , with colorful umbrellas put around the seat space and baby immature plants creating artful shapes in the circular beds .

And here it is once everything had fill up in :

Bird’s eye view of freshly planted garden

Gorgeous , proper ? !

The meticulously planned and tended rainbow layer was embed around the notable Sir - Ham - A - Lot the Pig . Many AAS plant ( South Pacific Scarlet canna , Fresh Look yellow-bellied celosia and Jam ‘ N Jellies Blackberry vinca ) were used and include Dolce Fresca Basil the Great for the green strip of the rainbow .

Another combination of Gretel garden egg and Prizm kale bordered the layer with pops of Warrior bunching onion to make a vertical flare .

Bird’s eye view of a large formal garden

The Garden hosts legion syllabus throughout the summertime include a Growin ’ Gardener Program in which 84 families enroll to get hand - on experience growing vegetables and annual flowers .

Category 2: 10,001 – 100,000 visitors per year

Winner: Purdue Extension Marion County Demonstration Garden, Indianapolis, Indiana

This garden is place on the Indiana Department of State fairground where Master Gardener Volunteer interact with 13,000 visitor during the 17 - day carnival . The rotary garden design feature Candle Fire okra , Aji Rico , and Hot Sunset black pepper ( to name a few ) in the master decorative garden .

The peppers stud the garden with gorgeous , glossy coloring , adding a cosmetic flash that congratulate the fervid colour of the flower flower throughout the garden .

Different foliage colouring and texture are used to create interesting contrast within the bed , and the tall pepper works are on purpose located behind shorter flowering plants , so that the pepper dangle above them attractively .

A large sculpture of a pig with two children standing beside it in the center of a garden

They also used three different variety of pumpkin ( Pepitas , Super Moon and Cinderella ’s Carriage ) as ground cover around a newly planted decorative tree to make an attractive visual affect that succumb a lot of produce . Small plant baskets overflowing with flowers hang up in the garden to add together even more decorative charm .

Category 1: fewer than 10,000 visitors per year

Winner: University of Wisconsin Spooner Agriculture Research Station, Spooner, Wisconsin

The culmination of a multi - class landscape pattern undertaking resulted in this beautifully design Modern series of gardens spotlight both old and new AAS Winners plants at the UW Agriculture Research Station . A central pinwheel wind collector garden overflowing with smart flowers intermixed with leafy greens and other edibles and nearby vertical and container gardens show visitant how they could shuffle edibles and ornamentals in their own plate garden .

The beauty of yellow squash is play out by cheerful yellow sunflowers nearby , showing a stark instance of how comestible horticulture can be both practical and visually stunning .

Spooner went one step further in their Monarch and Pollinator Sanctuary Garden and included native versions of many AAS plant in order of magnitude to provide a solid food generator for beneficial insect native to the area .

garden with tall, variegated foliage and bright yellow flowers in the front

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Kale bed in front of flower gardens with a greenhouse and trees in the background

Circular garden blooming with purple flowers surrounded by a round path with colorful flowers on the outer edges

Colorful peppers growing alongside ornamental plants

Peppers growing above bright red ornamental flowers

Large orange flowers growing in a circular garden

Small formal garden beds full of flowers, divided by neat lawn. A small windmill and tall trees stand in the background.

Bright yellow sunflowers growing in front of a trellis, from which dangles an oblong yellow squash

Pink flowers growing in front of short red flowers and tall spiky orange flowers