engleski

Usage of edible taxa from genus Prunus as landscaping plants

Nowadays, serious ecological changes in global ecosystem have significant impact on both, rural and urban human population, influencing their socioeconomic status in rural areas, but also in big metropolitan zones. In such circumstances sustainability becomes inevitable necessity in all populated areas, regardless its size. Sustainability is a complex concept that involves numerous social, economic, biological, ecological and technical factors, including their interdependence. Therefore, it includes the principles that may be applied in residential landscaping as a part of the strategy of holistic urban planning. Regarding this concept, genus Prunus encompass very wide range of species and varieties that are mainly used either as an edible fruit species, or as landscaping plants due to their high ornamental values. These species may be cultivated in public and private gardens with respect of their edible and ornamental function, and in a smart way combine both of them. Our goal is to evaluate ornamental potential of wild native edible Prunus taxa as well as cultivated varieties used as fruit trees, and propose their ornamental function as a structural part of cultivated/urban landscapes. In this paper, we evaluate characters of potential ornamental value of Prunus species, such as: habitus, foliage, change in autumn colour, flowers, flowering time and its length, bark appearance etc. Besides, the susceptibility of these taxa to pathogens, and their growing conditions as an important basis for developing ecological aspect of horticultural and landscaping sustainability, are also discussed.

Prunus, native species, ornamentals, ornamental value, fruit trees, edible landscape, sustainability

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