Many vegetable garden layouts, such as potagers, four square gardens and formal gardens, lend themselves to having a decorative herbal or floral border.
A vegetable garden requires maximum sunshine and protection from prevailing winds, whether hot or cold.
A wall, hedge or fence around the entire garden can provide just the right combination of exposure (sun) and enclosure (against the wind).
But within the garden, the borders will be lower and easier to work around.
Why not include some of these borders in your vegetable garden plans? Possible border plants
- Annuals: marigolds, nasturtiums, loose-leaf lettuces (red or green varieties), parsley, compact red, gold and green chilies, strawberries etc.
- Rosemary: can be clipped into a neat compact hedge.
Produces gray-blue flowers in winter when not much else is in bloom. - Lavender: choose a dwarf variety for a low hedge and keep it lightly trimmed.
- Chives: bears pretty purple pompom flowers and repels some insects.
Probably best to avoid planting near to peas and beans as it may hinder their growth. - Germander: can be clipped into a neat hedge.
Will grow quite quickly and therefore will need regular trimming. - Thyme: the fragrant oil from thyme is reputed to repel moths and aphids.
They can become sparse or begin to die back, leaving unsightly gaps.
To prevent these gaps, when trimming the plants, take some of the cuttings and push them into the soil around the the parent plants so that you will have new plants to take the place of the old.
Cautions
- Make sure you know the eventual height of the border plant.
You may not want it to be shading your vegetables from the sun. - Many of these herbs require good drainage, so it is wise not to plant vegetables requiring lots of water (e.
g.
tomatoes) too near to this herbal edging so that they are competing for water. - Take care that you do not plant an invasive plant as a border otherwise you may be up for a lot of work keeping it out of the rest of the garden.