(ARA) – Many gardeners who love their ornamental landscape are not sure if they want to give up space for a vegetable garden that needs to be replanted every year. Fortunately, there are dozens of incredible edibles that add beauty and style to the garden — and provide a bounty of fruits and herbs.

Monrovia, a leading plant grower, offers these suggestions for easy-to-grow edibles:

Fruit trees make a beautiful addition to the garden or in a container on a patio. Citrus, with its glossy green foliage and fantastic fragrance, can provide an abundance of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, lemons and limes. Nicholas Staddon, new plants director for Monrovia, suggests the Variegated Calamondin Orange, with stunning green and cream-colored foliage. Even the fruit is variegated with a pale green stripe. The Moro Blood Orange has bright red-fleshed fruit with a delicious flavor; and the Meyer Improved Lemon produces a crop of juicy fruit twice a year. Gardeners in colder climates can easily grow citrus in containers and winter them indoors.

Pomegranate trees have brilliant orange flowers and will yield a crop of big red fruit that are extremely high in antioxidants. Quince is a spectacular flowering tree that produces a tart fruit that makes fantastic jams. Try the Super Red Flowering Quince and enjoy huge bright red blossoms, or the Cameo Japanese variety, with delicate apricot-pink blooms.

Blueberries, according to Staddon, are the hottest edible for home gardens. Perhaps it’s because this delicious, antioxidant super-food is quite pricey in the supermarket, yet one plant can produce six to seven pounds of fruit. Blueberries are surprisingly easy to grow throughout the United States — even in warmer regions. Monrovia suggests the Southern Highbush varieties like ONeal, Sunshine Blue, Jubilee and Southmoon. These are extremely tolerant of heat and humidity and don’t require a pollinator to produce fruit.

For the colder parts of the country, plant the Northern Highbush varieties, such as HardyBlue, Patriot, and Spartan, or the really cold hardy Half-High varieties Northblue and Northsky. These do require a pollinator, meaning that you need to have at least two different varieties with similar bloom times, planted close together. Blueberry shrubs have a fantastic array of white to blush-colored flowers in the spring and foliage that changes in the autumn from a pretty green to vivid red and gold.

For something a bit more exotic, try growing kiwi. This native of New Zealand is delicious and easy to grow. It’s a fast-growing vine, so plant near a trellis or arbor so it can climb and the fruit can hang down for easy harvesting. Grapes are another great vine for covering structures, and you’ll be rewarded with sweet, juice grapes for eating or for winemaking.

Herbs will round out your incredible edible garden. Just tuck in creeping Rosemary like the Huntington Carpet or an upright grower like Roman Beauty or Barbeque, and some lavender, such as Hazel Spanish Lavender or the dwarf Thumbelina Leigh English Lavender. Try growing a Sweet Bay in a container on your patio and use the leaves for soups and sauces.

For more great ideas on adding attractive edibles to your garden, visit www.monrovia.com

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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The Local Nursery

Many privately owned local nurseries are quite knowledgeable about the strawberry plants that do best in the area.  The nursery will have these types of plants available and should offer full instructions on growing them.  Reputable plant vendors will offer a guarantee with their plants that should cover the first season of growth.  If the buyer follow all the instructions and the plants still fail the nursery will either replace the plant or give a refund.  Sometimes the local nursery will even offer a service of visiting the home garden and advising on the soil and growing conditions.

Books On Growing Strawberry Plants

There are several published materials that offer information on growing strawberry plants.  One book worth checking out is “The Backyard Berry Book:  A Hand On Guide to Growing Berries, Brambles and Vine Fruit in the Home Garden” by Stella Otto.  This 288 page book costs about fifteen dollars and offers great instruction for all types of berries including strawberries.  The author focuses on the tradition of home grown fruit and covers all aspects of the care of the plants. 

Another valuable book to own and read for growing strawberry plants is the “Berry Grower’s Companion” by Barbara L. Bowling.  This 308 page book looks into not only the great benefit of fruit growing but using the beautiful plants as landscaping in a garden or yard.  All growers of strawberry and other berry plants will find the information in this book very useful.

Other Information On Growing Strawberry Plants

For other information on growing strawberry plants a person can look at the many sites on the internet that offer advice.  These sites usually have good general information although it is not always the correct advice for certain locations and climates. 

A great source of information on growing strawberry plants is an older neighbor or friend who has had successful gardens in the area.  These people are usually very knowledgeable about all types of local gardening including growing terrific strawberry plants. 

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Where to Plant

When it comes to choosing the proper site for your blueberry plants, remember that blueberries prefer full sun, although the plants are able to tolerate partial shade. Blueberries require acidic and well-drained loose soils with a high organic matter content. You also have to remember that the pH of the soil is critical for blueberry growth and they grow best at a pH of 4.2 to 5.0, although they may be able to tolerate a higher pH up to 5.5

Planting

You want to use blueberry plants that are strong and dormant and which are free from viruses and diseases. Make sure that you sprinkle any dry roots with water and place any bare-rooted plants in plastic bags before you store them, especially if you are waiting for the right planting time to come around. Never leave the roots soaking in water or they will die, and if you need to store your blueberry plants for more than a week you want to dig a trench in well-drained soil, set the plants in the trench, and then cover the roots with soil.

Fertilizer

When it comes to fertilizer, you need to use fertilizer mixtures that supply nitrogen as an ammonium sulphate or urea. Supply potassium in the form of potassium sulphate, and avoid using muriate of potash, since it contains chloride which can actually be incredibly toxic to blueberries. After this you need to be sure to check the pH every year or two, especially if plant growth is poor.

Careful pruning is essential to help prevent disease outbreaks, and you want to examine the plants frequently so that you can keep an eye out for cankers that will first appear as small, reddish and discolored areas on the stems. These cankers can be incredibly troublesome because they can girdle the blueberry stems in one season, causing the affected stem to die.

By taking all of these and any other necessary pointers into information, then you will be able to grow full and beautiful blueberry plants. Just make sure that you always keep an eye on your plants, on a daily basis if you can, so that you can watch for problems and deal with any if and when they arise.

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Trees for Indoor Fruit Gardens

When people think of fruit trees they often picture large apple trees in their mind.  Of course, unless a home is absolutely huge large fruit trees are not a good idea for indoor fruit gardens.  In recent years scientists have made great progress in dwarfing fruit trees.  Most fruit trees are now available that will grow no taller than about five feet.  Most homes can accommodate one or two trees this size. 

These trees will produce fruit which is the same as large trees in an orchard.  Having an orange or lemon tree in the home is a wonderful addition.  Both these types of trees have been grown in homes with great success as long as there is enough sun exposure.  There are also other trees available for growing in the home but one must be cautious not to choose trees which require cross pollination unless there is room for more than one tree. 

Other Ideas For Indoor Fruit Gardens

There are other plants that will do well in indoor fruit gardens.  Strawberries can be grown well indoors and there are nice strawberry pots available at most gardening stores.  These pots generally have tiers for the small starter plants allowing for the vine shoots to grow also.  Melons can be grown in an indoor fruit garden but will need room to spread out.  If there is room in the home a table can be made with raised edges to hold soil and the plants can be grown on the table.  It will be important to either provide water drainage or have a base of gravel or stone under the soil. 

The most popular fruit which can be grown in an indoor fruit garden is the tomato.  Tomatoes are easily grown in containers and with adequate sun and water can produce large quantities of fruit from one single plant.  Tomatoes are great because they can be used for so many things.  They can be eaten fresh, canned or made into all kinds of sauces. The tomato is a great plant for the indoor fruit garden beginner.

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Choosing the correct plants for the area available, area of country the tree will be grown, and how many trees a person is interesting in tending; all of these factors contribute to making a wise choice for a tree which will bear the most fruit and live the longest.

To determine if container fruit tree gardening is suitable for the available area of a home or apartment, the person should decide how much space they want to dedicate to their “miniature orchard”. 

An average dwarf plant requires a pot 18-24 inches in diameter and an equal amount in depth; a half barrel size is a good rule of thumb.  If the area of the country has hard winters wheels would be wise to install in the bottom to make bringing the tree in and out of the cold would be wise.

A New Plant

When purchasing a new plant and pot it is important to make drain holes (if they aren’t already present) of about one inch, container fruit tree gardening requires the tree to be well watered and have thorough drainage.  The new plant may come already potted or bare rooted; the term bare rooted means just what it sounds like, the roots of the plant are packed in paper rater than soil.

After purchasing a new fruit tree for container gardening it is important to thoroughly soaking the roots in fresh water for about twenty-four hours before planting.  From this point it is a good idea to ready the pot, put some mixed soil in the pot mounding a bit extra in the middle of the pot to receive the freshly soaked roots of the tree.

The roots of the fruit tree should then be packed in soil; a small stake should be placed into the ground to help support the new addition to the fruit tree container garden until its roots take hold. 

A good rule of thumb for fruit tree container gardening soil, purchase a good quality potting soil and add some perlite; a good ratio is four parts potting soil to one part perlite. Perlite is a volcanic material which holds moisture and nutrients to the soil in addition to allowing oxygen to circulate into the soil around the roots.

Choosing A Fruit Tree

Choosing a fruit tree for container gardening keeping ones climate in mind is essential; a person living in Maine shouldn’t hope to grow lemons without a greenhouse or people in Arizona to have an easy time with blueberries.  Most berries, citrus and tropical fruit plants will grow well in pots; as will dwarf varieties of fruit trees such as peaches, pears, and plums grow well in containers.

Some fruit trees require pollination; for these trees multiple trees should be planted to provide adequate pollination for fruit tree container gardens.  Some fruits such as cherries are self pollinating can be independent plants.

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You can basically plant whatever types of fruit you want when you are fruit gardening, and so you should thus really sit down, decide what types of fruits you are going to want to plant, and then from there at least you will have a remote and basic starting point that you can work from.

After you have decided this, then you can go out and get the supplies that you are going to need, and of course the most important things are soil, fertilizer, and the fruit seeds so that you can plant them.

If you have never gardened before, or if you just want to refresh your memory and skills in this area, then you are going to want to take some time so that you can do a bit of research. For instance, you are going to want to learn about where to plant certain fruits, what time of the year to do so, and so on.

There are so many important things that you need to know about before you even consider starting a fruit garden of your own, and although of course it is supposed to be enjoyable and fun, there is also going to be a lot of work that is going to have to go into it, and so you are going to need to remember this too.

However if you are willing to put in the time and effort then you are surely going to come out with some really great results, and in the end this is all that matters, and all of the work that you put in beforehand is going to be so worth it.

Just remember to have patience, because this is really important here, and so take your time, and do not get frustrated, and enjoy yourself more than anything.

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