Designed Edible Meadows
Beautiful and biodiverse flower meadows with edible plants found in meadows from around the world
Imagine....
A stunning Flower meadow filled with a variety of flowers, buzzing bees, and alluring scents. Now, picture strolling through this meadow, foraging edible beans for preserving, leaves for stir-frys, and roots for roasting. Thats the vision of the edible meadow.
Edible meadow trial bed with 30 different edible species and a low percentage of Pictorial Meadows Pixie Mix for first year flowering.
​
What Is An Edible Meadow
​
An edible meadow is a designed ecosystem—a planting that draws inspiration from wildflower meadows and naturalistic design, but replaces purely ornamental species with edible plants from diverse cultures and climates.
Over the past six years, I’ve been experimenting with this idea: combining my background in permaculture and ecological design with a love for wild food and creative horticulture. The result is a vibrant, low-maintenance, and foragable landscape that feeds both people and pollinators.
​
​
When we think of “meadows,” many picture broad native wildflower meadows or agriculturally seeded mixes. This is something different. Edible meadows are grounded in the science and beauty of designed planting—drawing on the work of pioneers like Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough, who brought dynamic meadow aesthetics into gardens, and blending it with agroecological ideas from Sepp Holzer and Masanobu Fukuoka, who championed sowing diverse, edible, resilient ecosystems.
This work is an evolution, an attempt to further develop plantings that combine beauty, food and ecology.
​
Edible Meadow
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024
​
In 2024, I had the honour of co-designing an edible meadow for RHS Chelsea with my friend and collaborator Chris Hull. The garden won a Gold Medal, helping bring this concept into the spotlight and showing how ecological planting can be both edible and deeply beautiful.