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| Pink buckwheat blossoms in Bhutan. See link below. |
That's just one of the reasons some folks are starting to use buckwheat when landscaping. Other advantages: the seed is inexpensive to start with, and the plants tend to self-seed. Another cost saving is that we can harvest buckwheat at least twice each season. Buckwheat's a two-for-one crop,because it's growing cycle is short. So if one wants a constant display of blossoms in temperate climate conditions, it's just a matter of succession planting. Sow a couple handfuls of new seed among existing plants each week, and the older plants will be replaced by new ones. You can pull up the previous plants or just let them be overgrown by fresh plantings.
Another plus to buckwheat in the yard? The blooms attract lots of bees. Check out this article. Bees, of course, are not only good for the whole Earth, but busy pollinators are wonderful for your flowers, shrubs, and vegetable plants.
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| California buckwheat pollen is very attractive to bees. See link to the article this illustration comes from. |
Bees particularly like California buckwheat, which is a shrubby plant with big puffy blossoms.
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| This is California buckwheat, a shrub often planted in grouping with different varieties of sage. |
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| Another view of some California buckwheat, this time on a slope. |
Speaking of veggies: As I'm sure you know, a lot of people are in favor of replacing part or all of a grass lawn with garden plants. These include buckwheat, which makes food for people and animals. And as this recent NPR piece on "foodscaping" suggests, you can skip mowing. There's an incentive right there.
The trend is a hot one. Here's an article on the garden.org website about "edible landscaping."
On a practical level, the same hulls from processed buckwheat which are put inside pillows are also a wonderful natural mulch. Seven Arrows Farm, a nursery in Massachusetts, is one of several eco-minded landscaping companies which offers you the chance to purchase buckwheat hulls. You can bring containers there to fill, or arrange to get the hulls from the nursery.
Sources:
The photo of pink buckwheat in Bhutan came from this article. http://www.francesschultz.com/10644/
The images of California buckwheat came from https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/28594174/list/great-design-plant-california-buckwheat-pleases-pollinators
The picture and info at the bottom of this page came from https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/4185/
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