Beach Bean (Canavalia rosea, synonym Canavalia maritima) is a salt-tolerant vine that’s got it all together. As a plant that thrives on sandy soils and full sun, it has a tendency to weave and spread into seaside landscapes that are vulnerable to drought and erosion. Canavalia rosea is a popular and heat-hardy ground cover in Florida, which is a great first step to transforming your yard into a native landscape that can act as restored ecosystems for wildlife.  It is a popular Florida native bean plant that is edible while seed pods are still young. However, when the bean pods are mature, they will require extra processing to eat! 

Enjoy Canavalia rosea’s signature fuchsia blooms that contrast the plant’s shrubby, lime green leaves throughout the year, with the most abundant bloom time in the peak of the summer. As any beach bum could tell you, plenty of heat, warm soil, and long summer days will help beach bean plants thrive.

The Red Goji Berry, once unobtainable in the United States, is a plant that bears highly nutritious fruit. This vitamin-rich, immune-boosting superfruit is full of antioxidants. It’s what high-profile celebrities might have a guy on speed dial for. In reality, although the harvested fruit can be hard to find, Lycium barbarum is actually commonly found growing throughout the United States, where it has been naturalized from its original habitats in Southeast Europe and Southwest Asia. 

As a member of the Solanacea (nightshade) family, its cultivation needs are nearly identical to eggplants, tomatoes, and the like. Once the plant blooms in the late spring to early summer, it will bear branches of coveted ruby-red fruits, which will ripen by mid-summer. Harvest the berries at the peak point of maturation, because they may quickly spoil if left unattended to bruise and rot. Eat goji berries fresh, or dry them like raisins and enjoy them in cereals, yogurt, trail mix, tea, and more.

Simpson's Stopper is a fruiting shrub or small tree native to Florida, among other exotic locales like the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, all the way south through Colombia and Venezuela. It is a member of the Eucalyptus family and produces springtime flowers, colorful berries, and fragrant evergreen leaves. 

The leaves have a warm nostalgic fall-like aroma when crushed - think spicey cinnamon and citrus.  The showy white flowers are also very fragrant and are followed by red-orange berries in mid-summer and early fall. While these berries are edible and the fast-growing shrub is heavily utilized as a popular landscaping hedge, the plants are not often grown for the citrusy flavored berry - yet.  I'll admit that the flavor and texture won't absolutely knock your socks off, but it's not unpalatable by any means and it really is a beautiful and useful native shrub.  We love the look, texture, fragrance, and pop of color that growing Simpon's Stopper adds to our edible landscape!

Snowbank White Blackberry is a vigorous disease-resistant trailing plant that produces large, creamy snowy white blackberries, with the same juicy, sweet and vibrant flavor of a normal blackberry. White Blackberries are truly one of a kind!  The were developed by legendary plant breeder Luther Burbank and are somewhat translucent and white in color.

Red Abyssinian is a very attractive perennial plant that adds a brilliant pop of color to any landscape. It's closely related to banana plants and has a very tropical, with the added bonus of cold tolerance to Zone 8!  It's sometimes referred to as False Banana, Enset, or Ensente. Red Abyssinian is cultivated for it's highly ornamental red to burgundy foliage and edible root.  Although the root is rare to consume in the U.S., it's a very important food crop in Ethiopia. 

The Alachua Muscadine is a low-maintenance self-fertile grape variety that is resistant to Pierce's Disease. Large, delicious fruit ripen very uniformly in large bunches. The fruit have a thick skin but soft and juicy interior. The Alachua Muscadine's resistance and dry stem scar make this grape variety an ideal choice for the home garden, especially in the south.

Native to Hawaii, the White Jade Pineapple is a super sweet, spineless pineapple with white flesh, low acidity and a totally edible core! 

Most pineapple plants need full sun, but White Jade also thrives in semi-shaded environments. Pineapple plants need excellent soil drainage and are foliar feeders like all bromeliads.  So, be careful not to overwater and be sure to fertilize through the leaves, not the soil. 

The Natchez Blackberry is an early-ripening thornless blackberry hybrid developed by the University of Arkansas.  Natchez produces heavy yields of impressively large, sweet delicious berries. It's growing habit is erect to semi-erect and would perform well trellised.  Natchez requires as little as 200 chill hours.

Loved around the world, Black Pepper is a perennial woody vine native to southern Asia. Piper Nigrum can obtain heights of up to to 13 ft and is perfect for trellises, porches, fences, and poles with it's spreading vine. These vines will easily root and take hold to soil and surfaces, making this a great plant for cultivation. 

The fruiting vine bears small flowers which can produce long spikes (around 3-7 inches long) of dark red fruit.  These drupes are commonly called peppercorns and can grow in clusters of 20-30. These fruit are picked and dried in the sun or artificially, and crushed into pepper. Depending on when the fruit is harvested and dried can result in variations such as black, white, or green pepper. Black Pepper grows best in well drained and moist soils. It requires soil with plenty of nutrition, but isn't picky about altitude.  It even makes an excellent houseplant in temperate climates.  

The Velvet Bean is a tropical legume and annual climbing shrub native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia.  This vine is largely cultivated for the medicinal benefit of it's seeds.  Velvet Bean seeds contain the substance dopamine, or L-dopa, a substance that is used as a first-line treatment for Parkinson's disease.  Seeds also contain substances that have anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and anti-oxidant properties.

Velvet Bean produces white and lavender flower panicles and large clusters of deep-purple hairy bean pods that encapsulate the dark black medicinal seeds.  The Velvet Bean vine has extremely long climbing ability and reach.