Vegetables, fruits, berries and herbs are often stunningly beautiful plants. Any vegetable garden can be a feast for the eyes when attention is paid to design, color, interesting structures and plants’ ornamental qualities. Adding companion plantings of herbs and flowers attracts pollinators and beneficial insects that prey on pests while turning an a utilitarian plot into a pleasure garden.
But home-grown produce needn’t remain segregated in its own plot. Presenter Karen Bussolini has collected tips and photos showing the many inventive ways home gardeners have tucked edibles into flower beds, used herbs and fruit trees as landscape plants, assembled colorful edible container gardens. Whether you call it permaculture or edible landscaping, these biodiverse yards are humming with life and good things to eat. Being a locavore and reducing your carbon footprint never looked so pretty.
Karen Bussolini is a widely-published garden photographer, speaker, writer, NOFA-Accredited Organic Land Care Professional and eco-friendly garden coach. She has been a gardener as long as she can remember. She trained as a painter and had a career as an architectural photographer before turning her attention entirely to gardens. Her work explores the many ways gardening connects us to our place on earth and to each other.
This program is co-sponsored by the Amherst Garden Club and the Amherst Town Library.