It’s the time of year to think about planting the annual crop of garden vegetables—or to begin harvesting a few if they are perennials. Asparagus comes to mind, but a presentation in Harvard last week, “Edible Perennials in the Landscape,” suggested dozens of other possibilities in a growing trend to naturally incorporate food plants in human landscapes.
Aptly named John Root from Amherst, a musician and wild-foods enthusiast, flashed slide after slide of tempting possibilities, from perennial spinach to towering nut trees, with food-producing vines, shrubs, and other trees in between.
Where an azalea might go, a high bush blueberry can add summer fruit and fall color. Nanking cherry shrubs make good hedges. Root praised several vegetable plants including “Good King Henry,” a hardy green in the spinach family; lovage, a celery substitute; Chinese yams that produce both underground and aerial tubers; and Jerusalem artichokes, native sunchokes that are neither artichokes nor from Jerusalem.
For drama in the landscape, flying dragon orange’s contorted branches with backward curving spines would be hard to top. An elegant Chinese chestnut tree or a towering hardy pecan can add shade and beauty to a landscape.
Many edible perennials that were once cultivated and are now wild already exist in home yards. Lamb’s quarters, wild onions, purslane, and plantain may be undesirable in a lawn but delicious in a salad. Dandelion leaves are delectable now, before they blossom.
Familiar raspberries and grapes and less familiar hardy kiwis and nannyberries offer fruit options, along with mulberries, gooseberries, currants, persimmons, and better-known pears, peaches, apples, and plums.
In short, no separate gardens are required. Wherever a landscaping plant would go, a food-producing one could be found to fit.
Landscaping with perennial plants that provide food is not really new, but it is advanced by advocates of permaculture, a design philosophy that originated in Australia in the 1970s. Permaculture looks to patterns in healthy natural systems for ways to provide food and shelter, while conserving energy, water, and labor. Its name is an aggregate of “permanent agriculture,” but it is sometimes thought of as “permanent culture,” because of its design approach to meeting and sustaining human needs.
Root’s home, the Massachusetts Pioneer Valley, is in the forefront of permaculture in the Northeast, with its vibrant community of growers, educators, and writers on the subject. “Perennial Vegetables,” by Eric Toensmeier, who lives in Holyoke, and “Edible Forest Gardens,” by Greenfield resident Dave Jacke and Toensmeier have become seminal references in North America. The Conway School of Landscape in Conway offers a master’s degree with an emphasis on permaculture, and UMass Amherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture will offer one of the first undergraduate majors in permaculture in the country beginning this fall.
Not surprisingly, a good source for many of the not-yet-common plants Root mentioned is also in Pioneer Valley. Tripple Brook Farm in Southampton offers a variety of unusual plants from hog peanut, a low-growing round cover with edible seeds below ground, to native pawpaws, a favorite fruit tree of Native Americans. Food Forest Farm in Holyoke (www.permaculturenursery.com) specializes in plants for perennial landscapes including permaculture gardens, edible forest gardens, food forests, and edible landscaping.
A list of the plants Root highlighted in his slides is available on his website, www.johnroot.com, along with a list of plant sources and other references.
Root’s talk was co-sponsored by the Harvard Lions Club, the Harvard Cultural Council, and the Conservation Commission. “Everything about permaculture meshes with conservation values,” said Wendy Sisson, co-chair of the Conservation Commission.
Lions Club president Bob Kinnee said the presentation fit the environmental stewardship part of Lions Clubs’ international mission.
“One goal is to plant one million trees this fiscal year—a goal which has already been exceeded,” he said.
