Combine vegetables with flowers

Gain space in using vegetables as garden’s decorations not forgetting edible plants. It’s pretty, useful and healthy!

Areas as much vegetable patch as flowering beds, why have to choose?

How do I proceed?
Gain space in planning ahead a vegetables’ area in the middle of decorative plants, planting them in the sunniest spaces. Around those areas, plant flowers which blend in with all other plants such as Gypsophila, Verbena bonariensis, etc. Think also about foliage plants always effective like Heucheras and ornamental grasses. The neighbourhood of the vegetables will not affect them and the combination of the two will make for a pretty display. For quick growing vegetables, define small, geometrical areas, such as lines, rectangles or circles, easy to look after and which play with the vegetables’ look. A radish or chives’ border, a ground-cover of strawberries, a lozenge of purple lettuces or a square full of leeks are not looking ugly at all! Incidentally it is on this growing technic that the decoration of one of the most worldwide known French garden’s layout rests: the Villandry castle’s garden.

The Cardoon and the Artichoke have decorative flowers and foliage.

Just like in Villandry, vegetables’ embroidery!

A matter of proportions
Decorative vegetables such as Artichokes, Maize or Beetroots will easily blend in, and this in any flowering bed (providing you allow them enough space as they are cumbersome). You can even envisage decorating only using these vegetables! On the other hand, the less aesthetic, such as potatoes or tomatoes need hiding behind tall ornamental grasses. However make sure that they get enough light in order for them to develop fully. As for climbing vegetables (beans, peas…) offer them a decorative structure which they will soon decorate with foliage as a true climbing plant does!

A highly-flowered vegetable plot.

Flowers in a vegetable plot
In return, you can also place ornamental plants in a vegetable plot. It is even easier, as the best places left will be perfect for edible plants, and the incredible range available will allow you to fill in the remaining spaces with flowering or decorative-foliage plants. Do not forget the companionship’s rules as positive interactions or less favourable ones can also be created between ornamental and vegetable’s plants.

Tomatoes and Roses are two good soil and sun- lovers.

Some essential measures
When you plant vegetables with flowers it means that they will be receiving the same level of care. In case of a problem (disease or plant bug), envisage a solution for vegetables as any treatment intended for flowers will also go on the vegetables. But in combining flowers and vegetables you will encounter fewer problems anyway with your vegetables as they will benefit from the favourable environment of the decorative plants. Be careful though not to plant highly fragile plants such as box, with vegetables.

Harvest or admire?
In front of a flowering bed which combines the beauty of flowers and mouth-watering vegetables, we do not dare harvest, yet it is the aim! Harvest your crops in removing what needs gathering and replace it with other plants. You can also try to harvest in a discreet way, that it to say on the side hidden from view without thinning out too much.