Veggie Garden Design Ideas: Make Your Vegetable Garden Beautiful

Why can’t your edible beds be ornamental?

Whether you grow just a few tomatoes or a grand full of vegetable , edibles can be a beautiful part of your landscape . For blueprint inspiration , I visited two big veggie garden at Chanticleer and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania . The horticulturists at these inspirational public garden use many of the same design principles take in in ornamental landscape . They wreak with gloss , texture , shape , and focal points to add visual impact to their productive plot of land . Take a varlet from their Holy Writ , and incorporate some of these design ideas into your garden .

LESSON

Think About Color, Texture, and Form

The same principles that guide a successful ornamental plan can also be used to adorn a veggie patch . Here , the unequalled bamboo edging total body structure , determine the quad , and serves as an artistic focal detail . Within the garden bed , boldly tittup cabbage leaves put up textural contrast for feathery cultivated carrot superlative , lissom onion greens , and erect pepper plant . The glaucous brassica foliage also gives the design a delicious social disease of coolheaded blue sky .

Make a Grand Entrance

A vegetable garden does n’t need to feel disconnected from the rest of the landscape . A beautiful entry welcomes visitor and permit them be intimate that victuals are an important part of your garden . At Chanticleer , brave kiwi ( Actinidia arguta , USDA Hardiness Zones 4–8 ) arch over the gate , make a striking first impression .

Weaving Wattles

The “ baskets ” around Chanticleer ’s raised potato beds look unfermented and contemporary , but the practice of weaving wall and other structures from branches date back hundreds of years . Horticulturist David Mattern used arm cut back elsewhere on the property , weaving long , flexible branch between stalwart upright stake . Here ’s how to re - make this look in your own garden .

1 . Set by long , slight “ whips”when pruning or poll in spring . These should be conciliatory , unbranching , at least 4 or 5 foot long , and about as dense as a pencil or a digit . For the upright stake , you ’ll need duncish , sturdier arm that are about 3 feet long .

2 . Sharpen the end of your uprightswith a sharp hatchet , always cut back away from yourself . push back the stakes into the ground at even intervals , 18 to 24 inches aside . About half the height of your stakes ( 18 inches ) should be secret , and they should be straight and vertical . In hard filth , start holes by drive a piece of rebar into the soil first and pulling it out .

3 . waver the thin branchesbetween the good stakes . When you start a new branch , let it overlap the late offset by at least a pair of feet .

4 . crowd the woven branch downwith your fundament as you go , to serve keep the woven branches close together . When your wattle social system is the desired meridian , trim back off any loose end , and fill gaps in the weave by tuck in thin branches . Your social organisation should last at least a duo of seasons , and perhaps longer , depending on the species of wood used .

recommend Plants

•Willow(Salixspp . and cvs . )

•Smoke bush(Cotinus coggygriacvs . )

•Colored - stem dogwoods(such asCornus albaandC. sericea , cvs . )

DESIGN

Elements of a Knockout Veggie Patch

The tenseness between direct contrast and repeating makes a garden design interesting . Here are a few takeaway ideas that can be incorporate into any garden , irrespective of size or budget .

Carol Collins is the adjunct editor program .

pic : Carol Collins , taken at Longwood Gardens and Chanticleer

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