GARDENING: Edible landscapes can be beautiful, tasty, easy on the budget

The trend is to grow your own vegetables, but many of you don't because of the lack of landscape space. A solution is to mix edibles with flowers. Edible landscaping is simply a way of using plants in gardens to perform multiple functions, such as producing food, flavor and fragrance, all for ornamental appearance.

I'm now seeing tomatoes and peppers popping up in flower beds formerly occupied by marigolds and petunias. People are planting fruit trees instead of ornamental trees, covering fences with grapes and, in one case, screening a pool with towering stalks of sweet corn.

shrubs and throw in some fragrance.

Or go another way and plant edible flowers in your traditional garden. Grow nasturtiums and violas and toss a few petals along with your lettuces into a salad. You might realize an increase in yields and flower production. Why not have the best of both?

Consider creating a series of decorative raised beds. You'll hear more about raised beds at the seminar. They're efficient, beautiful and so easy to maintain.

Here's another alternative: Plant purple cabbages with snowy white cauliflowers in rows or cluster them for added beauty.

Plan carefully and don't go overboard when planting vegetables. Some take up a lot of room, so always know how big they'll be once they're grown, just like any other plants.

MUM SOCIETY OPEN HOUSE

If you want to grow mums, now is your chance to start off right. The Las Vegas Chrysanthemum Society is having an open house at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Nevada Garden Club Building, 3333 W. Washington Ave., for those wanting to grow mums. You'll see a fabulous show on all the amazing mums, and learn how to grow and enter them in the fall show. For more information, call 459-4633.

NATIVE PLANT GIVEAWAY

In keeping with the tradition of giving away native plants on holidays such as Valentine's Day, the Springs Preserve is offering potentially attractive plants to incorporate into your landscape and they are all drought-tolerant. It is our way of getting the secret out about the many benefits these beauties have for your yard. That's Friday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Springs Preserve.

Linn Mills writes a gardening column each Sunday. You can reach him at linn,mills@ springspreserve.org or call him at 822-7754.

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