Design solutions Mix fruit, flowers and veg to create a stylish potager
Enjoy fresh homegrown fruit, veg and cut flowers, says Dawn Isaac
How can I grow fruit and veg without turning my garden into an allotment?
MODERN GARDENS have to work hard these days – especially if you want to grow a mix of ornamental and edible plants all in the same small space. The answer is to create a potager garden, where flowers and attractive fruit and veg grow side by side. In France, where the word originates, potager referred to an ornamental as well as practical space, and brought together not only vegetables and flowers but also herbs, medicinal plants, fruit trees and shrubs, often with well-clipped topiary on the side.
Strong pattern
With gardens short on space today, there’s much to be said for a design style that’s both productive and beautiful. The key is establishing a strong pattern in the layout that will still look good even when crops have been harvested, offering structure throughout winter. Formality works well, and helps echo the traditional straight lines so often associated with vegetable growing and cutting gardens. It’s helpful to include permanent design features that add height, as we have done here with the gourd and bean arches, along with the shaped yew hedge, which shields the compost bins from view. And finally, never forget to stop and enjoy the view – and the harvest! The seat offers a view along the centre of the garden, while a good-sized dining terrace next to the house (not shown) allows you to eat your produce within the space where it grew.
Use companion planting
The beds contain a mix of herbs, vegetables and flowers, allowing for plenty of companion planting opportunities, such as chives planted with carrots or pot marigolds alongside tomatoes and beans.
Grow cut flowers
Potagers often include rows of cut flowers and here there’s plenty of space given over to growing blooms to cut for the house.
Create formal geometry
The garden is laid out using a strong, geometric pattern that creates an attractive formal garden design all year round.
Lay sweepable paths
Basketweave brick paths give a rustic, traditional feel and are also practical – any mess made during cultivation and harvesting is easy to sweep up.
Hide compost bins with yew
This elegantly shaped yew hedge adds year-round structure to the garden as well as usefully hiding a view of the compost bins from the house and dining terrace.
Divide space with stepover apple trees
Grown on dwarf rooting stocks, these stepover apple trees are trained as a single horizontal stem to save space. See page 77 for how to train them
Keep compost looking neat
Two compost bins, each a cubic metre in capacity, sit side by side to allow for turning. The wooden slats at the front are removable to ensure the finished compost is easy to access.
Add a bench under a gourd arch
An attractive bench has been placed under a strong wire framework that will support eyecatching ornamental gourds in autumn.
Train fruit into a fan
No space is wasted because even the fences and walls are used to support fan-trained fruit trees. These look attractive all year round, from spring blossom and autumn fruits to their winter skeletons.