Landscaping with Lettuce

Author: Sarah Pounders

The varied colors and textures of lettuce varieties allow students to create beautiful, edible designs for the school landscape.

Objective: To investigate the ornamental properties of lettuce in order to expand students' perceptions of what kinds of plant material can be used in landscapes.

Standards (Microsoft Word document)

Materials:

a variety of lettuce seeds
potting soil and planting containers, or landscape bed space
evaluation sheets

Background

You usually find fruit and vegetable plants in their own gardens rather than in more formal landscape plantings, but many edible plants are both tasty and visually appealing. Expanding the practice of edible landscaping could help increase access to and consumption of fruits and vegetables, especially in urban areas. Lettuce is a good choice because it's easy to grow, it grows quickly, and most students enjoy eating the lettuce they grow!

Laying the Groundwork

Inventory the edible plants on your school grounds and/or youth garden. If you aren’t sure if a plant is edible or not, add it to a separate list to research later. Encourage students to do the same at their homes. Ask the following questions:

How many edible plants did you find? What part of each plant is edible?
How many of these edible plants were located at the front of a building? How many were in back of buildings?
Do you see any trends in their placement?

Exploration

1. Plant a variety of lettuce seeds in separate containers or sections of containers, such as window boxes, or in landscape beds. Make sure you plant varieties with a diversity of leaf colors, sizes, and shapes, and label each variety clearly.

2. Ask student to keep a weekly journal documenting their growth. Once the plants get large enough, ask each student to complete an evaluation form for each variety. Evaluate the plants two or three times to account for changes as plants mature. (Remind students that there are no “right” answers – beauty is in the eye of the beholder.)

Making Connections

3. Have students compile the results of the evaluations and calculate an average visual rating for color, shape, and texture for each variety of lettuce.

4. Then discuss the following:

Which lettuce variety appears to have been the most attractive in the opinion of the whole class? What criteria led to this choice?
Which one was the least attractive according to the survey? What criteria led to this choice?
Would a mixture of different colors and textures look more attractive, or less?
Would you want to plant any of these varieties in your front yard or the front of the school? Why or why not?
Conclude the experiment with a salad party. As you enjoy your fresh snack, ask students, Do you think the fact that we can harvest and eat the lettuce increases it’s value as an ornamental landscape plant? Also, ask them to rate the flavor of different varieties. Is the lettuce with the highest flavor rating also the one with the highest visual rating? How do the two lists of ratings compare?

Branching Out

Sow lettuce seeds in small pots for students to take home. Ask them to write about where they planted them at home. Did visual appeal have any influence on their decision?
Provide old seed catalogs for students to search. Ask them to make a list of edible plants that could be used in an ornamental landscape. If you have enough catalogs, let them cut out pictures to create an informational brochure about edible landscaping to share with their family and neighbors.
Plan an edible landscape for your school or another public area to serve as a demonstration and teaching garden for the community. Ask students to brainstorm ways to promote edible landscaping, such as writing newspaper articles and selling appropriate seeds or plants.
Talk to students about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables each day. Create a class cookbook with easy recipes for preparing their harvest.