Call me crazy, but some of the things we plant in our vegetable gardens are just too beautiful to be ignored, so sometimes I plant them in planters as a specimen ornamental. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t also eat the veggies they produce. One of my favorite food plants to enjoy for beauty is squash. It’s hard to overlook the lovely green leaves and awesome deep yellow blooms.

I also like potted tomatoes. 

Charlie, my garden helper. And no, we didn’t do that to his ears. They were done sometime in his past before we adopted him five years ago. Isn’t he a handsome fella?

No veggies here. Although ornamental coleus does descend from coleus herb. I can’t think of any plant easier to grow, tolerates both shade and sun, and offers so much beauty in so many varieties. If you pinch the top little leaves from your coleus, they’ll bush up instead of being so leggy. And try the Kong Coleus. They are huge and the leaves are just like velvet. I don’t have any this year, but next year….