From Rosalind Creasy (1985)
Edible Landscaping
The early Puritans left their mark on us in a number of ways, some of which make life a series of joyless tasks. Sometimes I think their devotees must write garden books. The tone of many of the how-to books reeks of rules, admonitions, and dicta. How about a garden that is programmed to give you joy, to take care of you? The cottage garden is an outright celebration of what a garden can do for every part of you: colors to see, textures to touch, fragrances to smell, bird calls to hear, and myriad tastes for the palate. And, of course, we can’t forget the most important part, your soul. You will experience the renewal of life, that primordial urge to believe in the future. You will put your fingers on the emerging carrot seedlings, anticipate the taste of the first tomato, and feel delight when the hummingbird visits the sage and the monarch butterfly sips from the dew collected by the nasturtium leaf.
I am suggesting that you plant a rather hedonistic variation of the traditional mixed border. Put it where you usually see a conventional shrub or flower border—along a fence line for instance, or along a walk or driveway, next to the patio, or along shallow hillsides. Fill it with joy, with colors, tastes, fragrances and even tactile pleasures—a swath of flowers and foliage.
The mixed border, sometimes called the perennial border since it usually includes a large number of perennially blooming plants, has been in fashion since the late nineteenth century. It has its roots in the English cottage garden, and, at its best, the border is a subtle work of form, texture, and color—all used to together to delight the soul. Properly planned, the border changes with the seasons.
Traditionally the staples in the mixed border were non-edible flowers, mostly perennials, with a sprinkling of annuals for quick color. Popular perennial flower choices for this type of ornamental border were iris, peony, phlox, dalia, dais, chrysanthemum, poppy, and the like. A new variation in today’s perennial border is the addition of beautiful edibles such as ruby chard and flowering kale; plus a number of savory and attractive herbs such as variegated sage and dill; edible flowers such as nasturtium and carnation for your salads and desserts; and, to add still another dimension, fragrance, choose sweet-smelling lavender and stock. For many more choices, see the lists of flowers and beautiful edibles below.
Think of the pleasure these gardens can give. Imagine having your barbecue on the back patio surrounded by bright borders of nasturtiums, violas, geraniums, and many herbs and edibles. You could reach over and pick a few leaves of spicy basil to put on your guest’s still-warm tomato slices. Then you could harvest some of the nasturtium and viola flowers to add zip to your salad. Throughout the meal the fragrance of alpine strawberries would hint of the dessert to come, and the light fragrance of peppermint geraniums and lavender would perfume the air.
Your cottage garden could be near the front walk to welcome guests with fragrance and color. Or if your space is limited, you could even plant your pleasure border in the strip between the street and the sidewalk.
In planning your pleasure border, keep in mind these simple guidelines:
1. Make the border less than three feet wide or provide a path or access on both sides of the beds so you’ll be able to pick flowers and edibles and perform maintenance tasks.
2. Choose plants that require the same soil, water, and exposure.
3. If you are covering a large area, your design could depend on large quantities of one or two types of plants to unify the border, to create a theme to pull the border together for the eye.
4. There are two ways to work with color in these flower borders: (1) you can limit yourself to three or four basic colors, with one of them serving as an accent (for example, use red, orange, and yellow with an accent, a dash of blue); or (2) work with variations on one color theme (combining blues, lavenders, and pinks, for instance). Or throw caution to the wind, put in your favorite plants, and see what happens. Some people think that all flowers go well together, others don’t; it seems to be a matter of personal taste.
5. Think about the height your plants will be when they are full-grown. Consider height as a distinct design element; thus, tall plants will be at the back of the border while shorter ones will be toward the front.
6. Try to choose as many “double-duty” plants as you can; that is, choose those that have both colorful flowers as well as edible or fragrant flowers.
7. Choose attractive varieties of edibles for your border. Some vegetables and some varieties of vegetables are not particularly suited to a mixed border. For example, large vining squashes and pumpkins usually climb all over their neighbors; brussels sprouts usually get top-heavy and rangy with age; potatoes need to die back and turn yellow before they can be harvested. (See the list of suitable edibles below.)
Caution: Because, for the most part, you are using edible plants and flowers to fill these borders, exclude ornamental plants that are poisonous. Poisonous flowers you might be tempted to use but should avoid are sweet peas, autumn crocus, bleeding-heart, foxglove, lantana, and larkspur.
Planning and Preparation
“Choose a sunny area where you would like to see your pleasure garden. Then envision the area as a three-dimensional painting or a colored sculpture—with lots of textures, colors, and shapes. Only what you are creating grows! The fact that you are creating a work of living art adds a whole dimension of chance and excitement to the creation.” So says Kate Gessert, an experienced pleasure gardener and author of the book The Beautiful Food Garden. Unlike many food gardeners, she has been interested not only in how vegetables and fruits grow and taste, but also in how those edibles look in the garden. In fact, she was so interested that she managed a test plot of over one thousand varieties of annual vegetables at Oregon State University. As overseer, she evaluated the ornamental aspects and tastiness of the plants and included much of the information in her book. In an effort to share her experience and her vision of a pleasure garden, she has put together the following comments and recommendations:
“When you put in your pleasure garden, first, make sure that you have chosen a sunny, well-drained site. Next, incorporate plenty of organic matter; healthy plants are beautiful and productive plants.
“I love the way gardens are when various kinds of plants are all mixed together. I enjoy working in these gardens, being in the middle of them, looking out into a forest of deeply cut zucchini leaves, big round seed heads of leek, graceful, sweetly scented lily heads of lily flowers, and rampant caged tomatoes.
“I also enjoy the planning process, dreaming in winter and spring about what we’ll grow the next season. In particular, I enjoy planning the flower-vegetable-herb bed that we plant in front of our house in the planting strip between the sidewalk and the street.
“In spring, after working in plenty of organic matter, I sowed kale, leeks, and parsnips. Later, I added rhubarb chard, celery, and chrysanthemums, with short-term fillers—coriander, lettuce, and California poppies. These were replaced in late summer by carrots and ornamental kale, which really came into full color after the first frost. That fall the rhubarb-chard leaves turned a deep mahogany, and nearby were the yellow and red chrysanthemums and the bright green foliage of parsnips and carrots. In another part of the bed I used cooler colors: grayish foliages and pink and purple flowers. With the purple-leaved ‘Coral Queen’ flowering kale, I planted ‘Fragrance’ carnation, burnet (a cucmber-flavored herb with a rosette of delicate blue green foliage), fall ‘Violet Carpet’ aster, ‘Dwarf Blue Scotch’ curly kale, leeks, artichokes and wine red and lavender chrysanthemums. The combination was spectacular!
“Now it’s late fall, and we’re mulching the borders and planting spring bulbs. Already we are planning next year’s pleasure; we will enjoy snowdrops near the burnet, ornamental alliums near the leeks, and iris reticulata near the ruby chard.”
Look at the accompanying plans and pictures of the bed Kate designed. In particular, notice the arrangement of the different plants. The vegetables such as leeks and carrots, which you usually associate with long, straight rows, are clumped together instead. Nowhere is it written that vegetables have to grow in straight rows. In fact, that is not usually the most productive configuration. Straight rows have met the cultural needs of agriculture and its equipment, but the home gardener can produce more food per square foot by using wide rows or clumps. As Kate says, “Ornamental plants seldom look their best in long, straight rows—picture tulips or daffodils planted that way. Vegetables look best in clusters and arranged in pleasing shapes.”
Choose your pleasure plants from the list that follows. On the list there are plants that give fragrance, taste, and a bounty of color and texture. Some of the flowers are edible and are delightful in salads or floating on a clear soup; many of the flowers are suitable for cutting and drying. Think how nice it will be to save money on flower buying, as well as to give bouquets that don’t have a “canned” appearance, as so many purchased ones do. And they’re always the same varieties of flowers. Your bouquets will have an individual touch that reflects you, not the florist. Check to make sure that the flowers and vegetables you choose grow well in your area.
1. Alyssum
2. Asparagus, interplanted with kochia in the summer
3. Coreopsis, ‘Brown Eyes’
4. Dahlia, ‘terpo’
5. Artichoke, ‘Green Globe’
6. Chrysanthemum, lavender and burgundy red, interplanted with ‘Barrett Browning’ narcissus in the fall
7. Anemone, ‘Max Vogel’
8. Dahlia, pink
9. Clarkia in the spring; Zinnia linearis in the summer
10. Helenium, ‘Butterpat’; interplanted with ‘Carbineer’ narcissus in the fall
11. Swiss chard, ‘Rhubarb’
12. Chrysanthemum, ‘Freedom’
13. Parsnip, ‘Hollow Crown Improved’
14. Bunching onion, ‘Japanese’
15. Kale, ‘Dwarf Blue Curled Vates’
16. Leek, ‘Unique’
17. Celery, ‘French Dinant’
18. Chrysanthemum, ‘Fireside’
19. Lettuce, ‘Red Salad Bowl’ in the spring; ‘Portola Giant’ gaillardia in the summer
20. Sage, ‘Joseph’
21. Sage, ‘Broadleaf’
22. Viscaria, ‘Maggie May’, in the spring; ‘Coral Queen’ flowering kale in the late summer
23. Aster, ‘Violet Carpet’; interplanted with snowdrops in the fall
24. Petunia throughout the summer; interplanted with ‘Minnow’ narcissus in the fall
25. Coriander in the spring and summer; ‘Early Red Ball’ beets in the late summer
26. California poppy, ‘Sundew’; ‘Royal Chantenay’ carrots in the late summer
27. Thyme, ‘Dwarf Compact’
28. Carnation. ‘Fragrance’, interplanted with Iris reticulate in the fall
29. Burnet
30. Thyme, creeping
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See also Rosalind’s More Food, Less Lawn – Saving Money With An Edible Landscaping Plan
and Seed Saving and the Heirloom Vegetable Garden
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Certified Organic Seeds and Plants available from Seeds of Change.
Rosalind Creasy is author of Rosalind Creasy’s Recipes From The Garden: 200 Exciting Recipes from the Author of the Complete Book of Edible Landscaping and many others.
Excerpted from: Earthly Delights, by Rosalind Creasy, 1985
Images Credit: Rosalind Creasy
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