7 Edible Plants as Beautiful as They Are Delicious

If you don't need to be a chef to be a gourmet, do you need to be a garden designer to grow pretty edibles? Obviously not. But a few cues from a designer and plantsman might make your potager more interesting. As a kid, I learned to combine foliage textures and match subtle hues: curly kale with waxy cauliflower seedlings, vapory fennel among coarse tomato plants. Let's explore seven edible plants as yummy as they are pretty.

1. Kale

In this spectacular Montreal Botanical Garden display, perfectly grown kale rivals fiery pelargoniums and soon-to-bloom fountain grasses. While some cultivars are tastier, kale is a high-drama foliage plant ideal for cool summers and fall displays—it even improves after frosts.

2. Nasturtium

Nobody would munch on this giant reed (Arundo donax 'Versicolor', zone 7), however similar to sugarcane it may look. But the overflowing nasturtium at its base is as pretty as an annual and tasty mixed fresh with greens. Both leaves and flowers have a powerful peppery taste. Give it full sun, average soil—no soluble fertilizer—and just enough water for beauty all summer. At Giverny, Monet let it run almost wild.

3. Cardoon

The stately artichoke (Cynara scolymus, zone 6) would be a must-have even without delicious flower heads. Its bold, generous silvery foliage makes an architectural statement like no other.

Even better is its cousin, the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus, zone 7). Its foliage stands out all summer and late into fall. Blanched, its leaf stalks are an old-world treat.

4. Common Sea Buckthorn

Hippophae rhamnoides (zone 4) isn't common in the realm of carrots and peas, but named European selections have proven themselves with greatly improved fruit yield.

Small, abundant, bright orange fruits make exotic, superloaded juices ready early summer. Fine, silvery deciduous foliage pleases too. Annual formative pruning keeps it to a decent size and shape, as perfectly done on this Montreal specimen.

5. Herbs

They hopped the fence long ago, venturing into flower beds and planters everywhere. Purple-leaved basil and golden marjoram, spiky chives and lacy parsley now brush against petunias and bacopas. Here, various sages form a strict grid—could just as well form a low hedge border.

6. Bay Laurel

Along with bean tepees and sculptural high blueberry bushes, bay laurels (Laurus nobilis, zone 8) add structure and rhythm to the potager year-round. In milder climates they sit in ground; in colder ones, in large tubs brought in for winter. In balls, tiers, or pyramids, bay laurels take to pruning like few other plants.

7. Rhubarb

As final proof of the cosmetic appeal of simple edibles, look at the famed garden Les Quatre Vents in Charlevoix, Quebec. Along an impressive succession of water basins flanked by a double alley of thujas, common rhubarb stands loud and proud. Pretty, isn't it?