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

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

PICK A COLOR SCHEME

Color is another consideration in the integrated garden. Each bed could have a color scheme that coordinates with the continuous beds and also changes through spring, summer and fall as plants develop new leaves, blossom and bear fruit. Because of the wide variety of plants in the integrated garden, the color scheme must rely on a varied palette. Leaf shape and color can also add interest. Variegated lemon balm can tie a green and yellow bed together. Asparagus and cosmos both provide a ferny and delicate foil for more substantial plants. Rhubarb, with its large, dark-green leaves and pink ribs, makes a great accent plant, as does the spiky artichoke. Use the same principles for creating a knot garden -- using different colors of green to create a harmonious design -- to weave color and texture into the integrated garden.

Potted plants were a favorite Tudor method of creating interest in the garden. Elizabeth Keith uses standard roses in pots, but you can use a variety of plants. If rosemary or citrus trees are not hardy in your area, they make great accents when brought indoors during cold weather. If you like blackberries but don't want to battle a thicket, plant one or two in large pots. Since blackberries are members of the rose family, they bear beautiful, white single blooms before fruiting. Eggplant is another potted plant candidate, bearing flowers of dark pink with gold centers before the onset of shiny purple fruit.

Pay careful attention to plant growth habits, eventual height and blooming periods when designing each bed. You want plants to spread so that each planting doesn't look like a little dot in a sea of earth. However, you don't want notorious spreaders like mint, lamb's-ears or any member of the squash family to choke out surrounding plants. Train the squash up and over metal arches, plant the mints away from the garden in a more naturalized setting, and vigorously weed out unwanted lamb's-ears. Tall, straight plants belong in the back so that they won't upstage the focal point. Don't forget that vegetables, fruits, berry bushes and herbs also flower. Their blooms can become part of the ever-changing and ever-fascinating drama of the integrated garden if you know what colors to expect and when.

So get creative and forget rigid rows of stereotypical vegetable and cutting gardens. Plant an integrated garden like you would a perennial border or a knot garden, incorporating the more functional and decorative plants into a setting that is designed to please the eye... and the nose... and the palate.

Judith Fertig wrote about container gardening in the May-June 1998 issue of Flower and Garden magazine.