Graphic garden

Bold, sculptural forms combined with a range of textures and colors can make a garden that’s based on foliage just as interesting and inventive as one that’s filled with flowers. Here, in garden designer Ivette Soler’s Los Angeles front yard, she includes not just showy growers like giant rosettes of echeveria, toothed aloe, and swordlike phormium, she also includes edibles—plants that are often confined to backyards. Ivette tucks veggies and herbs including ‘Red Rubin’ basil, wispy fennel, coarse-leaved artichokes, and ‘Tricolor’ sage into her beds. She uses them just like any other landscape plants—for their textures, colors, and shapes—proving that small kitchen gardens can be both pretty and productive.

More: 7 edible garden design ideas