Start by including some edibles with your annual flowers. Try accenting a flower bed with deep green rosettes of Green Ice lettuce or New Zealand spinach. For example, chives and sage have a bushy, upright shape, while German chamomile and pink yarrow have delicate foliage topped with tiny flowers. If you need to remove an existing tree or shrub that has died or outgrown its site, consider a fruit-bearing tree or shrub as a replacement. Highbush cranberries, blueberries, and some species of apple trees provide color, texture, and food.
Strawberries produce fruit most of the summer and tolerate marginal soil and light shade.
Herbs such as thyme and oregano can also be planted as groundcovers. Hedges and Containers Make use of existing fences and walls. Try training gooseberries along a fence, or use the structure to support raspberries, trailing nasturtiums or sugar snap peas. Shrub roses, such as rugosa roses, make a lovely and resistant barrier. Rugosa roses produce large red rose hips that contain 60 times the vitamin C of an orange.