Become your own garden architect: design an integrated garden with flowers, vegetables and herbs

Flower & Garden Magazine, Nov-Dec, 1998 by Judith Fertig

Those of us who are winter armchair gardeners look through magazines and garden books envying all the different gardens we see. "Maybe I'll concentrate on just a vegetable garden this year," we say to ourselves as we can almost see and taste the wonderful gourmet vegetables. Or we leaf through a seed catalog and picture the new perennial varieties that will add color and form to our garden. And then, we hanker for peaches, apples, blackberries and raspberries that we can pick and eat right from our own back yards. But we can't do without the fragrance and flavors of herbs that we grow, either.

One solution would be to plow up the lower forty and put in all four gardens. But most of us don't have a lower or even upper forty. With limited space but big ideas, what do we do? How about a garden that combines them all? How about an integrated garden?

The idea of an integrated garden is not new, the French potager and the English Tudor kitchen garden are all forerunners. During the 16th and 17th centuries, New World explorers and plantsmen were bringing new plant varieties to Europe. These new plant species were coveted status symbols -- the "futures" market back then. And French noblemen wanted to protect, as well as show off their bounty, taking guests to the long windows of the chateau and looking down on their investments arranged in pleasing patterns. And so the potager was born -- a garden that combined new and old fruits, herbs, vegetables and flowers in formal beds. The Tudor kitchen garden was much the same -- almost everything that the household needed was grown in one compact yet formally arranged space.

MAXIMIZE YOUR SPACE

And today there's no reason why the gardener can't "have it all," if the space is properly planned. The integrated gardener has to think like an architect and an artist to design this type of garden. The first consideration is the maximum use of space. Why not make use of vertical space by training plants upward? Zucchini. beans, peas and tomatoes can grow to great heights on wire frames or rose arch frames thus freeing up the space below for other plantings. Curb the outward bound habits of fruit trees by espaliering their branches to a fence or garden wall. Gooseberries, red currants and raspberries can be trained against a wall or fence. Renowned British gardener Rosemary Verey incorporates this technique at the Bransley House. A tunnel of tendriled peas with pink blooms, zucchini with pendulous green fruits and yellow blossoms, and beans with red flowers all grow up and over a rose arch frame, leading visitors into the garden.

Practicality can be beautiful. Elizabeth Keith, whose house has been evolving since the 18th century, wanted a garden with a colonial mix. Surrounded by a low wall of Connecticut stone, Keith's garden reflects artistry and practicality all at once. Laid out in geometric beds with walkways of crushed stone, the garden is pleasing to the eye. In the center, a circle of culinary herbs fans out from the handmade wooden dovecote like the spokes of a wheel. The inner quadrants show off herbs, flowers and vegetables. Fruit trees grow just outside the fence and grapevines trail over the dovecote and arbor seats. Pink standard roses in antique flowerpots punctuate the four corners of the garden.

The garden of Suzie Bales, a director for W. Atlee Burpee & Co., is both a testing ground for Burpee and a practical beauty in its own right. Enclosed by a white picket fence, as well as by pink roses, morning glories and peas, the garden has 12 raised beds edged with logs and a circular herb garden bordered with brick. The four wedge-shaped beds of the herb garden are planted with herbs and edible flowers and punctuated by a center planting of roses surrounded by lavender. Other beds contain cutting flowers, oriental vegetables, tomatoes. perennials and annuals, vegetables from Burpee's "Best Vegetable Collection" and everlastings. Bales plants some areas in this garden twice: salad greens are sown in early spring and again in late summer for harvest in early summer and early fall. When this space is vacant, Bales starts annuals and perennials for later transplanting.

Another ingenious way to plant salad greens or shade-loving plants is to place them under fruit trees or tall plants. Tender lettuces, sweet woodruff and forget-me-nots can all benefit from the cool shelter.

CHOOSE YOUR FOCAL POINT

Tall plants and garden ornaments are also effective elements of integrated garden design. Each bed should have a focal point: a dovecote, an armillary sphere, a large terracotta pot or a rose bush are but a few ideas. In Verey's garden, an old stone urn is surrounded by a ring of purpletinged cabbage. greenish-purple kale and Brussels sprouts, a circular border of lavender and six white standard rose "trees." Another bed might have a dwarf fruit tree as its focal point, surrounded by alpine strawberries with a border of green santolina and spikes of pink foxglove in the corners. Another example would be a gray-green, pink and white bed arranged around a dwarf cherry or pink rose standard as the focal point, with the unique shape of silvery-green artichoke at the ends or corners of the bed and pink geraniums with lamb's-ears (Stachys byzantina) as a border.