Has anyone planted a decorative garden only with edibles?

Thanks guys. Lots to think about there. Going through the suggestions I already have seeds for some of them, mainly collected from gardens I've worked in. Fennel is a great suggestion, I love it, and I have some alexander seed too I think

I've got the perfect south facing house wall for a fig and I need to create a small run of hedging. Bay would be the obvious choice for that but I hadn't thought of it. Myrtus ugni would probably be alright in winter if I kept it near the house rather than down in the frost pocket at the bottom, that one's new on me but sounds perfect.

We have a lot of pheasants around here and they love beetroot. They might have to stay in the veg plot where they can be protected a little better. I planted without netting last year and they basically ate the lot. The carrots, parsnips and onions did okay but the beetroot - gone! I'd spot them coming up then a couple of days later, no sign of them. My runner beans also got nailed by the roe deer just as I thought they'd made it past the slug stage and should have been alright! Bar stewards, but we love to see them!

I don't really mind if it goes a bit bare in winter. The west side of the garden we look at from the house is covered in alders and willows, it looks lovely just as a frosty bare silhouette. Watching the squirrels darting around is a bit of a love/hate relationship. They're incredibly damaging and troublesome but they're just so entertaining! On the flip side they taste quite good in a peanut sauce and served on skewers!

 

I like your idea of a bay hedge, but be aware that some people can't stand the smell of them. My OH used to complain bitterly every time he cut the hedge near my bay tree. It got cut down three times before I gave in and let him take the rootball out as well!
As for the pheasants, I always remember a quote from John Seymour in one of his early books on self-sufficiency - "Next door's pheasants ate all my grapes, but I ate the pheasants so that was all right."

 

Well it has been done before
You could perhaps visit to get some further inspiration.
King's Kitchen Garden | Versailles

 

Just some things I haven't seen mentioned that might be fun, apios americana (groundnut), oca (new zealand yam), mashua (a perennial nasturtium), chinese artichokes are tubers that can survive overwinter with a little mulch and all are edible.
Actinidia arguta is a bit rampant but does well in our climate without any fuss. We can also grow sea buckthorn (bit vigorous), chokeberry (aronia), honeyberry, and saskatoon (amelanchier). I've grown all the above for years.

You could look at are vining fruit, which can look good on supports, tayberry, loganberry, Tummelberry etc are good.

Lime trees have edible leaves and can be pollarded to make a nice feature. Young hawthorn leaves were also eaten in the past and they are lovely trees. For something a little different you could look at toona sinensis, it has proven very hardy here (norwich) for about 15 years now.

I've not used either of these companies but they both have lists of edibles

Pennard plants have unusual edibles and perennial vegetables listed
About Pennard Plants

Edulis Fruit and veg
Fruits

 

I've also seen cornus mas and apples clipped into very neat, proper looking hedges, at Alnwick gardens.

 

Juniper is very nice and great for winter decorations too.

Now I want a Juniper!

@Neil Clements , if you are after something a bit different, take a look at Jurassic Plants. They have plenty of interesting edibles. I have a Sechuan pepper which looks promising.

 

You can also plant ornamental edibles - dahlias, hemerocallis, dianthus, violas, roses all have edible flowers plus nasturtium flowers and leaves.

T&M have a list too - https://www.thompson-morgan.com/edible-flowers

 

Dont forget you could encourage dandelions,ground elder, solomans seal, chickweed and all manner of other forageables.....

 

Do people really eat half this stuff, if so why are they not no 1 on the veg list.

I've tried a few of the more exotic fruits and in most cases I can see why mostly we dont bother with them, same with a couple of the less seen veg, mostly bland and not worth the effort, of course that's just my opinion, but most will never become mainstream , people stopped eating weeds about 100 yrs ago,.

 

I can have a good punt at answering that.

Nettle soup is probably my favourite soup, and sea buckthorn sorbet is second to none. Ground elder isn't unpleasant, in fact it's pretty decent. Mulberries taste stunning. Common denominator, none of them store or package well. The food we eat these days is very much influenced by what can sit in a plastic packet on a supermarket shelf for days or even weeks, nutritional benefit or taste isn't top of the priority list for the people who provide what we eat. Iceberg lettuce for example, you'd have to drive a truck over it to mess it up and in the right conditions it'll sit there looking edible for ages.

Growing at home opens up all sorts of opportunities to eat the foods that have long been forgotten. Often they're better for us and some taste really good once you've built familiarity.

Did olives, anchovies or sprouts taste good the first time you ate them? I doubt it. Those, in most cases, are learned flavours. I hated olives for the first two decades of my life then I read an article about training taste buds to accept new things. I bought a couple of jars of olives and forced myself to eat just a small portion every day for a couple of weeks. When I'd finished I vowed that it was a stupid thing to do and that I'd never try it again! A couple of months later I was in the supermarket and I just couldn't help picking up a jar, I've been eating them ever since.

 

Do your arguta get fruit, how long did it take to fruit?
We have a kens red and a male and theyve gotten rather large and not flowered yet!

 

I thought solomans seal is poisonous

on roses: if you want to eat them get a very fragrant rose. they are usually pink. the flavour comes from the organs in the middle that output the smell.
I took the flower heads, cut the green off so just the female bits and the petals, soaked in sugar and got up to boiling then blended it. Made a very strong quite tasty rose flavour. Perfect for turkish delight or something.

The only wild thing i really look forward to is elderflower and I pick several kilos and make cordial. Elderberry is okay but really needs something else in addition, and a lot of sugar and acid. but flower is delicious.

 

Jurassic Plants do a number of Sechuan pepper relatives (Zanthoxphyllum) including Lemon pepper, Japanese pepper. Note a number of species are called Sechuan pepper.
This is a link to their edible list Plants
Dahlias are both decorative and edible.
Don't bother with Wonderberry (Solanum retroflexum) I grew it in Essex, fruit was tasteless, wine looked like meths and didn't taste any better. Some birds obviously liked the fruit as for the rest of my time in that house every year I pulled it up from all over the place.

 

Jurassic plants website is a nightmare for me - too many tempting plants!
They claim yuzu citrus is hardy - maybe Gloucestershire is mild enough to try @Neil Clements ?

 

They're based in St Asaph, not far from tropical Wirral @CarolineL .