As the idea of homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs gains increasing interest in American homes, a service offering of “edible landscaping” is beginning to crop up among residential landscapers. It can be a wonderful add-on service that clients appreciate.

For Shannon Hathaway, president of Green Heron Landscaping Inc., in Cary, NC, edible landscaping is not a new concept in any way. She says that her interest in it began as a little girl with her grandmother and mother’s gardens. “My grandmother had a vegetable garden that was bigger than I’d ever seen and I loved walking through it when I was a kid,” says Hathaway. “My mom’s garden focused more on herbs so I also got a taste of growing a successful herb garden as just a kid.”

While studying landscaping in college, Hathaway also fell under the tutelage of an instructor who emphasized living off the land. So it was no surprise that she began offering this service with all of her landscaping clientele when she started her own business. She has found it’s not a terribly hard sell. The lush climate of the region certainly helps as does consumers’ increasing interest in knowing where their food comes from.

“There’s definitely more interest for this lately and I find a lot of clients come to me and ask for it. But I also suggest it every time I meet with a client for the first time,” she says. “Even if they’re certain they don’t want fruits or vegetables, a lot of people love the idea of fresh, homegrown herbs.”

Edible landscaping doesn’t just mean creating a little vegetable box in the backyard. It focuses on really incorporating these food-producing plants into the entire landscape. Hathaway says that is often a foreign concept to customers and requires some education. “Americans typically create a rectangular box and put all of their vegetables in that one space,” she says. “But Europeans incorporate their herbs and vegetables into their flower beds and look at them as beautiful. Fruits, vegetables, and herbs can be very beautiful—it’s just how you incorporate them. We talk to clients about these opportunities and help change their mindset a bit to appreciate edible landscaping as beautiful.”

Incorporating the produce into the existing landscaping is also beneficial for the plants. The produce is much more lush and healthy. “If you incorporate your fruits and vegetables in your borders and beds it allows you to rotate your crops more easily and you’re not completely exhausting the soil by doing so many vegetables in just one small plot of land,” says Hathaway.

Hathaway says that offering edible landscaping goes hand-in-hand with the company’s “Green Movement” focus and for that reason has been a major contributing factor to their success. “We have found a real niche in the Green Industry by offering edible landscaping, which is part of our overall green focus,” she says. “We don’t use chemicals and try to educate our clients on other ways of growing. We’re reminding people that edible things can be beautiful and that growing your own fruits and vegetables and living off the land is a wonderful thing.”

Since the company is based in suburban Raleigh area, one challenge has been working with Home Owner Association rules which can be restrictive. But Hathaway says that they’ve found ways to work with these rules and still incorporate edible landscaping into the property. Interestingly, she says that an influx of various ethnicities moving to the region has actually helped push the movement. “We’ve had a number of clients from India who have moved into our region and are expecting the land to produce because that’s what they’re used to,” says Hathaway. “They realize that we live in such a lush area and that you can grow a lot here and they expect that to happen. They’re bringing their traditions of using the land for food production and reminding many of us of our own past. It’s really helped drive the movement for more edible landscaping.”

In the Raleigh region Hathaway says that fruit like plums, pears, figs, peaches, pomegranates, and persimmons really thrive. There is also a large variety of vegetables and herbs that do well in the climate. “It’s a wonderful region for growing so it makes sense that more clients are showing interest,” she says. “I think it will only continue to grow.”

 Service Snapshot

Company Name: Green Heron Landscaping, Inc.

Headquarters: Cary, NC

Year Founded: January 2002

No. of Employees: 6 full time, 1 part time

Clientele: 99% residential

2011 Revenue: $400,000 gross

2012 Projected Revenue: $450,000 gross

Why Edible Landscaping? “My interest in it started as a kid and only grew as I studied landscaping,” says company president Shannon Hathaway. “I try to bring the concept of ‘living off the land’ into as many landscapes as I can.”

Investment? “There is no added cost to the landscaper to offer edible landscaping to clients, and most wholesale nurseries offer fruit trees and herbs,” says Hathaway. “But an investment in education does help. Courses can be found at local community colleges, arboretums, or through the Cooperative Extension Service.”

Photo: Green Heron Landscaping Inc.