Enhancing the Edibility of Northeast Landscapes with Native Species

There’s an increasing inclination to utilize more native species in home landscaping, and in parks and other conserved landscapes, thanks to books like Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home, which extol the virtues of native plants over exotic ornamentals for attracting and sustaining beneficial insects. Yet, for some property owners/managers, this alone may be insufficient motivation to “go native”. The fact that many native species are edible by people too provides an additional powerful incentive for people to plant them.

Juneberries (Amelanchier spp.), for example, are equally edible by songbirds and people and taste like a cross between cherries and almonds. Edible wild plants offer opportunities for people to connect to nature via their taste buds, thereby building their enthusiasm and public support for adding edible native plants to their home landscaping, as well as conserving other lands that offer foraging opportunities. Adding native edible plants to a landscape can boost biodiversity as well as “spice it up” (literally as well as figuratively – i.e., we can have our acorn cake and eat it too).