Your HOA says no vegetable gardens. Your front yard is "too small" for food production. You love the idea of growing your own food but you don't want your place looking like a farm stand.
Here's the thing: you don't have to choose between beautiful and productive. There's a whole category of plants that look like they belong in a designer garden AND put food on your table. They're called edimentals — edible ornamental plants — and they're about to change the way you think about your yard, your balcony, and your relationship with food.
Key Takeaways
- Edimentals are plants that are both ornamental AND edible — gorgeous enough for a flower bed, productive enough for your kitchen
- They're perfect for HOA neighborhoods, small spaces, and anyone who wants beauty and food from the same square footage
- Many edimentals are perennials — plant once, harvest for years with almost zero ongoing cost
- You can start an edimental garden in containers on a balcony — no yard required
- Growing even a small amount of your own food reduces your dependence on supply chains and rising grocery prices
What Are Edimentals — And Why Should You Care?
"Edimentals" is a portmanteau of edible and ornamental. The term was popularized by Stephen Barstow, a Norwegian gardener who grows over 2,000 edible species in his garden — most of which look absolutely stunning.
The concept is simple: instead of separating your "pretty plants" from your "useful plants," you grow plants that do both jobs at once. Purple kale that looks like a living sculpture. Nasturtiums that blanket your garden in orange and red flames while adding a peppery kick to your salads. Artichoke plants with dramatic silvery leaves and those iconic purple blooms.
This isn't a new idea — people have grown food and flowers together for centuries. But the term and the movement are gaining serious traction right now, and for good reason.
Why Edimentals Are Exploding Right Now
Three forces are driving this trend, and they all point in the same direction: people want more control over their food without sacrificing the beauty of their outdoor spaces.
Food prices keep climbing
Grocery bills have jumped over 24% since 2020. Herbs alone can cost $3-5 for a tiny plastic clamshell that wilts in three days. Meanwhile, a $4 rosemary plant produces fresh herbs for years. Growing even a fraction of your own herbs and greens puts real money back in your pocket. Our food prices guide breaks down why growing your own food makes financial sense.
HOA-friendly food growing
Millions of homeowners live under HOA rules that restrict or outright ban vegetable gardens. Edimentals solve this problem entirely. Nobody complains about a garden bed full of flowering herbs, ornamental kale, and cascading nasturtiums. It looks like intentional landscaping because it IS intentional landscaping — it just happens to feed you too.
The self-sufficiency movement
More people than ever want to reduce their dependence on fragile supply chains. You don't need 40 acres and a tractor to start. A few edimental plants on your patio give you a real, tangible step toward growing your own food. Small steps, big shift in mindset. Check out our beginner's guide to growing your own food for the full roadmap.
The Top 12 Edimental Plants (By Category)
Here are 12 plants that earn their spot in any garden by being both genuinely beautiful and genuinely useful in the kitchen. We've organized them by type so you can build a layered, diverse edimental garden.
Herbs That Double as Ornamentals
1. Lavender
Silvery-green foliage with those iconic purple flower spikes. Use it in baking, teas, lemonade, and even savory dishes. Attracts pollinators like crazy. Perennial in zones 5-9 — plant it once and enjoy it for a decade or more. Drought-tolerant and thrives on neglect.
2. Rosemary
Evergreen, fragrant, and covered in tiny blue flowers in spring. Use it in roasts, breads, cocktails, and infused oils. Grows into a gorgeous woody shrub over time. One plant replaces years of buying those sad little grocery store packets. Hardy to zone 7 (grow in containers and overwinter indoors in colder areas).
3. Sage
Velvety gray-green leaves with purple flower spikes. The purple and tricolor varieties are especially stunning in garden beds. Essential for fall cooking — think stuffing, pasta, brown butter sage. Perennial, drought-tolerant, and practically indestructible once established.
4. Chives
Those round purple flower puffs are one of the prettiest sights in any spring garden. The entire plant — leaves and flowers — adds mild onion flavor to everything from eggs to salads. Perennial, comes back bigger every year, and self-seeds generously. Possibly the lowest-maintenance edible plant on earth.
Vegetables That Look Like Art
5. Rainbow Swiss Chard
Bright red, orange, yellow, and pink stems with deep green or burgundy leaves. It looks like someone painted it. Packed with nutrients, works raw in salads or cooked like spinach. Cut-and-come-again — harvest outer leaves and the plant keeps producing for months. Stunning in containers or as a border plant.
6. Purple Kale (Redbor or Scarlet)
Deep purple, ruffled leaves that look like a living sculpture. Holds its shape and color through frost — actually gets sweeter after a cold snap. Use it in smoothies, salads, chips, or stir-fries. Architectural enough to anchor a flower bed. Ornamental kale varieties at nurseries are the same species — just grow the edible cultivars instead.
7. Artichokes
Dramatic silvery-gray foliage that spreads 4-5 feet across. The flower buds are what you eat — and if you leave one or two to bloom, they produce massive purple thistle flowers that stop people in their tracks. Perennial in zones 7-10. One plant produces 6-8 artichokes per season once mature.
8. Scarlet Runner Beans
Vigorous climbing vines covered in brilliant red-orange flowers all summer long. The flowers attract hummingbirds. The beans that follow are delicious — eat young pods like green beans or let them mature for dried beans. Train them on a trellis, fence, or archway for vertical drama. An absolute showstopper that feeds you too.
Flowers You Can Eat
9. Nasturtiums
Fiery orange, red, and yellow trumpet flowers with round lily-pad leaves. Every part is edible — flowers, leaves, and even the seed pods (they taste like capers). Peppery, bright flavor that elevates any salad. Grow them as ground cover, in hanging baskets, or trailing over walls. They thrive in poor soil and actually bloom MORE when you don't fertilize.
10. Calendula
Cheerful orange and yellow daisy-like flowers that bloom nonstop from spring to frost. Petals add golden color to rice, soups, and baked goods — sometimes called "poor man's saffron." Also used in natural skincare. Self-seeds so freely you'll have them forever after one planting. Attracts beneficial insects that protect your other plants.
11. Borage
Star-shaped blue flowers that look almost electric. Tastes like cucumber. Toss flowers in salads, freeze them in ice cubes for drinks, or use young leaves in recipes. One of the absolute best plants for attracting bees — plant it near your food crops and watch pollination (and harvests) improve. Self-seeds enthusiastically.
12. Violas and Pansies
Delicate, jewel-toned flowers in purple, yellow, white, and bicolor patterns. Mild, slightly sweet flavor. Use them to decorate cakes, garnish cocktails, or toss into salads for color. They handle cool weather better than almost any annual and bloom through fall and even into mild winters. Perfect for edging beds and filling containers.
How to Design an Edimental Garden
You don't need to be a landscape architect to make this work. Follow these four principles and your edimental garden will look intentional, professional, and beautiful — while quietly feeding you.
Layer your heights
Put tall plants in the back (artichokes, scarlet runner beans on a trellis), medium plants in the middle (kale, chard, rosemary, sage), and low growers in the front (nasturtiums, violas, chives, calendula). This creates depth and visual interest from every angle, just like professional landscaping.
Play with color combinations
Group complementary colors: purple kale with orange nasturtiums. Yellow calendula with blue borage. Rainbow chard with silvery sage. The contrast draws the eye and makes the garden look designed rather than random. Repeat the same color combos in different areas for visual cohesion.
Plan for succession
Choose plants that peak at different times so your garden has something beautiful and something harvestable in every season. Chives and violas shine in spring. Runner beans and nasturtiums dominate summer. Kale and chard carry through fall. Rosemary and sage look gorgeous even in winter. Year-round beauty, year-round food.
Use companion planting
Many edimentals naturally help each other grow. Nasturtiums repel aphids from nearby crops. Borage improves the flavor and yield of strawberries and tomatoes. Chives deter pests when planted near roses. Our companion planting tool helps you find the best combinations for your specific garden.
Perennial Edimentals: Plant Once, Harvest for Years
Here's where edimentals really shine from a self-sufficiency perspective. Many of these plants are perennials — you put them in the ground once and they come back year after year, producing food with zero additional cost or effort.
Think about that for a second. You spend $4 on a rosemary plant in 2026 and it feeds you fresh herbs until 2036 and beyond. That's the kind of math that makes grocery store herb prices look insane.
Your best perennial edimentals (depending on your climate zone):
- Lavender — 10-15 year lifespan, zones 5-9
- Rosemary — evergreen, zones 7-10 (container culture elsewhere)
- Sage — 5-8 year lifespan, zones 4-8
- Chives — essentially immortal, zones 3-9
- Artichokes — 5+ years, zones 7-10
Even the annuals on this list — nasturtiums, calendula, borage — self-seed so freely that you effectively get perennial performance. Plant them once and they pop up on their own every spring.
Perennials also use dramatically less water than annual vegetable gardens because their established root systems reach deeper into the soil. Less watering, less work, less cost. More food, more beauty, more resilience. That's the whole pitch.
Container Edimentals: No Yard Required
No yard? No problem. Edimentals might be the single best category of plants for container gardening on balconies and small patios. They look gorgeous in pots (no one will think you're running a farm on your fire escape) and they produce real, usable food.
Best edimentals for containers:
- Rosemary, sage, and chives — thrive in pots as small as 8 inches, look beautiful year-round
- Rainbow Swiss chard — stunning in a 12-inch pot, produces for months from a single planting
- Nasturtiums — cascade beautifully over hanging baskets and window boxes
- Violas — perfect for edging larger containers or filling small ones
- Purple kale — a single plant in a decorative pot makes a dramatic accent piece
Start with a herb garden starter kit and a few raised beds or large pots. You'll be amazed how much food a handful of containers can produce when you choose the right plants. Check our guide on the best containers for growing vegetables for specific recommendations.
Getting Started: Your First Edimental Garden in 3 Steps
Don't overthink this. The beauty of edimentals is that they're almost foolproof. Here's how to start this weekend.
Step 1: Pick Your Space
- Identify a spot that gets at least 6 hours of sun (most edimentals love full sun)
- A flower bed, a strip along a fence, a patio with containers — anything works
- If you only have shade, focus on chives, violas, and borage — they tolerate partial shade
Step 2: Choose Your Starter Plants
- Beginners: start with nasturtiums (from seed), chives (transplant), and one herb (rosemary or sage)
- That's three plants that cover flowers, herbs, and color — and all three feed you
- Grab an heirloom seed mix that includes edible flowers for even more variety
Step 3: Plant and Let Go
- Most edimentals need minimal fussing — avoid over-watering and over-fertilizing
- Nasturtiums and calendula actually perform better in lean soil
- Harvest regularly to encourage more growth and more blooms
- Watch your garden feed you AND impress your neighbors at the same time
Total startup cost: as little as $15-30 for seeds and a couple of transplants. A herb garden kit gives you everything you need in one box. If you want to go bigger from day one, a raised bed kit combined with an heirloom seed mix sets you up for a full edimental garden for under $100.
Start your edimental garden today
A few beautiful, edible plants can transform your space and put real food on your table. No farm required. No HOA complaints. Just gorgeous plants that happen to feed you.
Get a Herb Garden Starter KitRead: How to Grow Your Own Food
What to Read Next
- How to Grow Your Own Food (Complete Beginner's Guide) — the full roadmap from zero to harvest
- Container Garden on a Balcony for Beginners — grow food in any space
- Best Containers for Growing Vegetables — what to grow in, and why it matters
- Food Prices Are Rising Fast — Here's What You Can Do — protect your budget by growing your own
Frequently Asked Questions
Edimentals is a portmanteau of "edible" and "ornamental." It refers to plants that are both beautiful to look at and fully edible. Think purple kale that looks like a sculpture, nasturtiums that carpet your garden in fiery orange and red while adding peppery flavor to salads, or artichoke plants with their dramatic silvery leaves. Edimentals let you grow food that looks like a flower garden.
Nasturtiums are the easiest edimental for beginners. They grow fast from seed, thrive in poor soil, need minimal water, and produce an explosion of edible flowers and leaves all season long. Chives are another excellent starter — they come back every year, produce beautiful purple flower puffs, and require almost zero care.
Absolutely. Many edimentals thrive in containers and are perfect for balconies, patios, and small spaces. Herbs like rosemary, sage, and chives do beautifully in pots. Rainbow Swiss chard makes a stunning container display. Nasturtiums will cascade over the edges of hanging baskets. Even compact varieties of kale and violas work well in containers as small as 8 inches across.
Yes — most edimentals are excellent for pollinators. Borage is one of the top bee-attracting plants in any garden. Lavender, rosemary, sage, and chives all produce nectar-rich flowers that bees and butterflies love. Calendula attracts beneficial insects that help control garden pests. By growing edimentals, you create a food garden that also supports local ecosystems.
Many edimentals are surprisingly cold-hardy. Kale and Swiss chard survive light frosts and actually taste sweeter after a cold snap. Chives, sage, and lavender are perennials that return year after year in most climates. Calendula and violas handle cool weather beautifully. For very cold zones (USDA 3-4), focus on chives, kale, borage, and calendula — they all handle tough winters.