The Natural Gardener
I’ve always been one to take rules about what sort of plants are supposed to go together with a pinch of salt. Ornamentals and edibles are largely one and the same in my book. Tall towers of tomatoes or beans look a picture paired with herbs and flowers of all kinds, while potted fruit complementing potted buddlejas makes sense to me. Incidentally, in my garden cavolo nero (Italian black kale) is an ornamental (save the odd leaf given as a snack to my bearded dragon). Plants mixed and mingled together make for a real visual feast, full of textures, colours and forms, and works well particularly if you don’t have room for separate areas of each.
But it was while I was out planting marigolds with my tomatoes the other day that I considered the folkloric phenomenon of ‘companion planting’, where you create close plant communities that benefit each other in some way. Traditionally the strong odour of marigolds is supposed to ward off hungry whitefly from nibbling your prized plants, much like mint, basil and alliums such as chives, garlic and leeks planted near roses and prized crops give off such a stench to pests that they back away, confused and revolted. In fact, these methods remain purely anecdotal – the science suggests that insects actually feel around for the right plants and aren’t at all put off by unrelated scents nearby. What they are put off by, though, is a melee of mixed plants to fend off before they eventually get to the right one. Fortunately, ‘intermixing’ slows the little blighters down. The alternative is monoculture cropping, with rows of our garden pests’ favourite snacks laid out nice and easy for them to get to. Still, my marigolds look lovely brightening up my plot with bold orange blooms.
There are other good ways of companion planting though, such as sacrificing nasturtiums to attract cabbage whites away from your crops, or planting runner beans among sweet peas to increase the chance of getting pollinated. Mixing plants also means we can grow more flowers with pollen and nectar among veg on the allotment, providing more food for pollinators.