We love the concept of edible hedges and landscapes toward expanding food options. There are many plants that are both ornamental, edible, and also medicinal. The best of both worlds of beauty and function.

For years we’d only planted for beauty and aesthetics, mainly because we live in the woods where it’s been too shady for a full on vegetable garden. But in the last couple years we finally cut down a few scrub pines to let in more light to make room for a vegetable garden.

But beyond the garden, we’re really getting into planting edible plants as a part of foodscaping with edible landscaping whenever possible. When the plant is beautiful and has food benefit, it’s a win. If that plant is lovely, can be eaten, AND has medicinal benefit, it’s a win-win-win! One of our favorite examples is nasturtiums.

While edible flowers like the perennial nasturtiums may not be the best for edible hedges, they are a great accompaniment to the design and planning of an edible landscape along with edible ground cover plants. Edible perennials can make for lovely borders and accents to an edible hedgerow.

When it comes to plants for hedges, there are many shrubs and trees that can be trained and pruned to be effective fences and hedgerows.

Multipurposing Plants for Fences, Food and Health

We’re all about leveraging time by planting perennials, when available, and multi-purposing whatever we can. So when we first saw examples of creative fencing using edible plants, trees and shrubs, we were intrigued to learn more and to try some.

But first, let’s cover the pros and cons of edible hed

RELATED: Perennial vegetables to grow

GROW A FENCE! Instead of building a fence… plant it, grow it, eat it and use it!

Growing Edible Hedges

When planting a hedge why not make it dual purpose and create an edible hedge? It will mark your boundaries, or block unsightly views plus provide healthy food, herbs and even medicine while adding landscape beauty. A win-win situation!

If you’re tight on space and want to use as much of that space for growing food, all the more reason to plant edible hedges. While you’re at it why not consider planting edible ground cover plants too?!

The lovely English garden below offers example of the edible hedge concept. It’s not entirely an edible hedge or edible fence, but it’s so beautifully arranged where the edibles hug the perimeter walls surrounding the small lawn area blending flowers and staging plants by height from smallest in front to tallest in back. Smart, efficient and lovely!

In the following photo, that perimeter brick wall could also serve as perfect for growing espalier fruit trees. Walls add support, radiant warmth, and protection from the elements.

Uses for Edible Hedges

Consider what purpose you need your edible hedges to serve.

• To keep out wildlife and dogs, select hedge plants with sharp thorns such as blackberry, gooseberry, and rugosa rose. Plant these thickly so they fill in quickly, forming an impenetrable wall.
• For an evergreen hedge that won’t lose its leaves. Depending on your area, these might include citrus, natal plum, sweet bay, and rosemary
• For edible berries, consider elderberry, blueberries, mahonia, blackberry or raspberry
• Edible vegetables might include asparagus, corn and sorghum
  • Seasonal hedges can include beans, peas, squash and other vining vegetables, growing on attractive trellis fences that should be fine even for picky home owners associations.
• Nut bushes such as hazelnuts (filberts) make an attractive edible hedgerow

Fruit Trees for Fencing and Edible Hedges

Fruit trees trained espalier style can make artsy and elegant edible hedges. Naturally, these will require work to build the desired structures and time to train and prune them to shape. Or, you can simply plant them close together than for an orchard and keep them trimmed more hedgellike, as cropped or freestyle as you like.

Most fruit trees can become edible hedges, however, may be better espaliered because you won’t want fruit bearing trees to be crowded together. If growing too closely together, the interior fruits would be hard to harvest and inclined to rotting on the branch from age, bugs and disease.

Fruit Trees for Edible Hedges Best for Espalier Fences

• Apple
• Blueberry
• Cherry
• Citrus
• Fig
• Kiwi
• Peach
• Pear

Here’s more on espalier apple trees and other fruit trees.

EDIBLE HEDGES

There are many types of plants, shrubs and trees that can serve as an edible hedge. We’re featuring some of the favorites below here, listed alphabetically by name of the fruit or vegetable. But first, here’s a longer list of many of the best options for edible hedges.

Plants that are more trees than shrubs, are good for taller edible hedges, however, you can also keep them pruned to be shorter and smaller. Herbs like lavender and rosemary can make low hedgerows that are good for defining landscape areas and perimeters.

The list of possibilities is vast and includes many varieties that most people are not familiar with considering that few of the hundreds of edible plants are actually sold in stores. We’ve included bamboo, which young shoots are edible, however, it’s also very much a functional plant. From fishing poles to a bean teepee trellis, tomato supports and pea trellises, growing bamboo is like growing garden tools.

So this list is a start and includes some familiar and some that may be new to you, as they were for us. But this is a start to get us all thinking on and exploring some of the many options.

List of Edible Hedges, Including Herbs, Plants, Shrubs, and Trees Good for Edible Landscapes

Some of these are expanded on further below this list.

• Asparagus
• Bamboo – (Arundinaria & Phylostachys species); choose clumping varieties to prevent bamboo invasion
• Bay leaf tree or shrub – Willow Bay (Laurus nobilis)
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Camellia
• Chokeberries – Aronia melanocarpa
• Cornelian cherry dogwood
• Cranbush, American var. – (Viburnum trilobum)
• Currants
• Espalier fruit trees
• Gooseberry
• Huckleberry – (Vaccinium ovatum Pursh)
• Lavender
• Lingonberry
• Mahonia, (Mahonia aquifolium), AKA Oregon grape
• Mulberry – (Morus nigra)
• Natal plum – (Carissa macrocarpa), fragrant flowers, edible fruit, zones 9-11
• Oregon Grape – (Mahonia aquifolium)
• Raspberries
• Roses – especially, R. acicularis, R. rubiginosa, R. rugosa (make very good flowering hedges), & R. villosa for the largest rosehip fruit
• Rosemary – tall growing varieties for hedges; low growing, creeping variety for edible ground cover
• Serviceberry – (Amelanchier alnifolia), AKA Juneberry, the Saskatoon var. is the most flavorful
• Strawberry tree – (Arbutus unedo), hardiness zone 4-9
• Wax myrtle, (Myrica cerifera) – evergreen leaves and berries have culinary and medicinal benefits, and the waxy berries are also used for making candles
• Yucca – Yucca filamentosa – for an ornamental wide and low-growing hedge with edible, medicinal and functional uses.

Wax Myrtle Evergreen

The Yucca Filamentosa Plant

Asparagus

For a seasonal edible hedge, the wispy ferns of the asparagus plant make a beautiful landscape feature when the ferns are allowed to grow after harvest. However the asparagus frond must be propped up with some kind of fencing or other support and they will turn brown and need to be cut back winter.

A perennial, asparagus should be planted with care since it will take three years in the landscape to start producing edible spears. While you have to be patient, after the first three year wait, asparagus can produce for 20 more years or more as a permanent planting.

After harvesting the asparagus spears, the ferns continue to grow tall and wispy throughout the season, but will need a little fencing support to prop them upright.

As an edible hedge, asparagus is lovely, green and fern-like in spring and summer, needing support as it grows tall. It will turn brown in fall and winter and is best cut to the ground.

Asparagus is a perennial that takes 3 years to produce food, but continues producing 20 years or more thereafter.

Blackberries

Blackberries can be great edible hedge options for yards and gardens.

Advantages to Black Berry Hedges

• Delicious fruit
• Blackberry leaves can be harvested for tea
• Thornless blackberry bushes are easier

Disadvantages to Blackberry Hedges

• Deciduous bushes are not useful for privacy hedge, due to leaf loss
• Can grow to be a thick protective barrier

Blueberries

Highbush Blueberry

Another North American native, the blueberry bush thrives in acidic soil. Blueberries can tolerate soggy soils, but prefer well-drained sandy soils and full sun. For best results, plant at least 2 types of blueberries in your yard or orchard.

Use finely ground sulfur if your soil tests is above the desired pH of 4.5 to 5.2. Blueberry plants need at least one inch of water weekly during the growing season, especially for the first couple years. Use peat moss or pine needles to help retain moisture and prune plants in late winter or early spring.

Low Growing BerryBux Blueberry

For suburban edible landscape gardening, also known as “foodscaping”, we love this relative newcomer. The BerryBux blueberry plant for a low-lying edible hedge or landscape plants. This grows to about the size of the lovely Sweet Box plant that announces spring is around the corner with it’s wonderful powerfully fragrant mid winter blossoms.

Planting Full Sized Blueberry Hedges

• Plant blueberry bushes 2.5-3′ apart.
• Use the same variety blueberry for the same hedge row.
• For a shorter blueberry hedgerow, use compact varieties such as Patriot blueberries.
• For tall hedges, plant faster growing upright varieties such as Jersey or Bluecrop.

Find more information, images and videos on how to grow blueberries here.

Blueberries grow to heights of 6 to 12 feet, making excellent edible hedges, windbreaks and privacy screens, when planted 2.5 to 3 feet apart.

Camellia Bushes

Camellias are beautiful and hardy bushes that make evergreen privacy hedges with benefits. Camellias come with pink or white flowers, which can be added to tea or used fresh or dried cooking. An edible oil is made from camellia seeds for cooking and also medicinally.

Medicinal Benefits of Camellia Japonica

Salves and tonics of Camellia japonica flowers are used to make salves and tonica and are used for burns. Additional benefits of, camellia include:

• Astringent
• Anticancer
• Antihemorrhagic
• Haemostatic

Please visit this article for more on camellia’s health benefits, where you can also learn more about the true tea Camellia.

Nanking Cherries

From the WaldenEffect.org

Nanking Cherries are shrubs or small trees growing 9-15′ in full sun and well-drained soil. Plant more than one Nanking Cherry for cross pollination, 15 feet apart for trees, or 4 feet apart for hedges.

Cranberry – Highbush Cranberry – Viburnum trilobum, AKA crampbark

This native North American plant is self fruiting, disease and pest resistant and grows to 8–15 feet tall and 8–10 feet wide. Annual pruning is needed to maintain the desired size and shape. For a solid hedge, plant bushes in full sun to partial shade in rich and loamy soil, 2-3 feet apart.

A favorite for birds, the antioxidant rich fruit, is high in vitamin C making it very tart. Reminiscent of cranberries in look and taste, this lovely red berry, is ready for an easy harvest in August, and is often sweetened and used in jams and sauces to be palatable.

The viburnum bark contains a bitter compound called viburnine, and is an antispasmodic, used for centuries for relief of menstrual and stomach cramps and also asthma. 

Espalier Fruit Trees

You can try espaliering any fruit or nut tree onto a fence or wall for your edible hedge. Find more on espalier here.

Mahonia Berry Bush – AKA – Oregon Grapes

We have the sturdy and prolific Mahonia in our yard. It’s an attractive evergreen shrub with holly-like leaves, that’s a reliable workhorse of beneficial food and medicine.

Instead of popping vitamin C pills, when the mahonia is in fruit, we pluck a small handful of the Mahonia berries. We freeze or dry the excess so that we can have them year round.

To some, they’re too tart. In our family most of us find them pleasant enough. The berries are actually reasonably stout and very firm, looking a lot like a slightly elongated blueberry.

It’s eye-opening to realize that there are hundreds—likely thousands—more fruits, vegetables and weeds to eat than most of us have ever heard of. There are reasons for that, with a primary one being that if it doesn’t travel well or last long, or have mass popularity, it doesn’t get sold in most grocery stores.

So the Mahonia berry is not as sweet as blueberries and while they’re hold up well to travel and storing, they have as much or more seeds as fruit. So these factors make them less desirable as a mass market item for the modern western palate.

Roasted mahonia seeds are a coffee substitute.

And… mahonia fruit and especially the bark and roots (that with the most yellow coloration) contains berberine.

Mahonia Medicinal Benefits

• Antiamoebic
• Antibiotic
• Anti-inflammatory
• Antiseptic

For more Oregon Grape benefits here.

Nut Hedges

Nut bushes, such as filberts and hazelnuts, make an attractive hedgerow while providing edible nuts for people and wildlife.

Hedging – Hazel makes a great hedge taking well to trimming and providing a dense hedge screen. Nut production is not as high as when grown as free standing plants but some nuts can be harvested from the hedge. The plants are also tolerant of wind and a 2 or 3 row windbreak can be set up where alternate rows are coppiced on a 7 year cycle. 
~Essential guide to hazelnuts

The Common Privet Hedge, Not Edible, but...

Okay, while the fast-growing privet hedge may not be edible, privet has benefits far beyond that of a privacy fence. More studies are needed for widespread acceptance in the west, but we believe there’s value in traditions that have stood the test of time, even if science hasn’t yet proven it.

Often, there’s less funding to study plants that are easily accessible to people to grow for their own remedies. such a study?

A plant’s benefits that are not yet scientifically proven doesn’t negate the benefits of plants used for centuries.

Privet contains ligustrum, an active therapeutic compound and has been used in Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years! However, in the US, ingesting privet is only advisable under medical supervision, so do your research and seek out a Chinese health practitioner or other appropriate healthcare professional.^[1]https://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/herbs/privet.html ^[2]https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/ligustrum-lucidum

For some creative uses of privet hedges for fencing, and issues around taking care of them, you may enjoy this article from ThisOldHouse.com. 

Rosemary, Salvia Rosmarinus

Hardy to USDA zone 7, in warm areas rosemary makes a great low growing, 3-5-foot tall hedge. The rosemary bush grows densely, produces beautiful blue flowers, wispy foliage and a memorable scent.

You can find lots more on this wonderful herb renowned for longevity and so much more here in this article on benefits of rosemary.

Rosemary Goes Beyond the Garden and Into the Landscape

Rosa Rugosa

Benefits

• Thick foliage
• Easy to grow
• Not disease prone
• Abundant fragrant blossoms
• Large rosehips packed with vitamin C
• Grows tall and wide – 4-8′ tall and 4-6′ wide
• Leaves and flower buds can be made into tea
• Rosehips can be made into jams and preserves, fruit leather and teas
• Rose petals are edible and favored for desserts, jams, honey fresh in salads

Disadvantages

• Very thorny – need gloves to work with bush
• Very Invasive – spreads by rhizomes and runners

WARNING: While the rugosa rose has lovely, fragrant roses with highly beneficial rosehips, it’s a very invasive shrub. A highly determined grower, our rugosa rose bushes would love to take over our blueberry patch.

Fiercely hardy and thorny, rugosas can be exceedingly difficult to get rid of, not only because of the rapid and prolific growth rate, but also because they’re very hard to handle. So take care on where you plant them, and consider some sort of barrier to keep rhizomes from spreading. 

If you want the benefits without the invasive concerns, you could try growing rosa rugosa in huge pots.

You can find more here on Rosa rugosa.

Rugosa Rose – rose buds, petals, leaves and rosehips are all edible and medicinal.

Willow Whip Fence

In closing, the Willow whip is a very popular fencing topic when we share it on the Gardens All Facebook Page, and has the added benefit of being used for energy in the UK.

As for edible, while the Willow Whip Fence inner bark is edible after boiling, that isn’t the best feature of this plant. Rather, it’s the strength and flexibility for weaving attractive fences.

Vertical gardening is another option for getting the most produce in the least space, and certainly, fencing plants like willow whip can serve as trellises for growing vertically.

Willow for Biomass and Medicine

But there are more potential benefits to growing willow. Willow is a fast growing tree crop that can be harvested multiple times before replanting, and can be used medicinally for the aspirin component, salicin, as well as for biomass. So if you’re looking for a crop to grow that has multiple benefits and purposes, you might look into willow trees! ^[3]https://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=US201301598437

Here’s are more examples of living willow whip fences.

And… if you want more on how to create these fences, you may enjoy this espalier video.

The Art of Espalier

Cover photo source via Flickr hapsnaps^[4]https://www.flickr.com/photos/hapsnaps/

Let us know what kind of edible hedges are you growing? We’d love to hear about it and see your photos!

Enjoy growing edible hedges and landscape!