The economy is showing some signs of recovery, but news from various parts of the horticultural industry remains ominous. One of my favorite nurseries, Matterhorn, in Spring Valley, New York, closed abruptly in April of this year, after struggling to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Heronswood Nursery, which had been purchased by Burpee Seeds in 2000, went out of business, after the original Washington State nursery property and rights to the Heronswood name were sold by Burpee. Many Heronswood plants will still be offered by Burpee, but the last retail vestige of Heronswood—once a groundbreaking nursery—is now gone. As if that isn’t enough, American garden magazines, like the century-old Horticulture, are slender shadows of their former selves, victims of publishing industry changes, not to mention the downturn in advertising revenues.
In the face of the uncertain economic times and in response to the fresh foods/slow foods/farm to table/sustainable living movements, vegetable gardening has surged. Ornamental gardening, by contrast, has suffered. All gardening is good gardening and I think it is a shame that some vegetable gardening purists condemn ornamental gardening as silly frivolity to be eschewed by those interested in saving the planet and/or feeding their families. Sometimes it is hard to see the big picture from atop a soapbox.
The healthiest people, in my opinion, eat fresh vegetables and surround themselves with flowers. Real gardeners know that you can have it all—edible plants, if you want them, and ornamentals. Not only that, but you can have it all even if you all you have is a small space or containers. The only requirement is a bit of imagination.
I love half whiskey barrels or wine casks for small spaces. You can plant a perfectly good three season garden, complete with edible and ornamental species, in a single half whiskey barrel. Suppose you want tomatoes, basil and flowers. Start by buying a tomato cage as early as possible in the spring and “plant” it in the middle of a half whiskey barrel filled with potting mix. Plant ornamental sweet peas around the cage, so the vines will twine up it. Buy some pansies and install them around the edge of the barrel. By the time the sweet peas have nearly finished their early to late spring run, you can pull them out and install starter tomato plants in their place. At the same time, you can pull out the pansies, or move them to a smaller container and put in your basil. If you want summer flowers, alternate the basil plants with small zinnias, marigolds or snapdragons. These annuals will attract pollinators, in addition to providing flowers up until frost. After all, three basil plants will give you more than enough basil, even if you favor perpetual pesto production, as I do. If you like different varieties of basil, plant three different ones.
The vegetable/ornamental combinations are endless in large containers, just as they are in small, medium and large gardens. A potager or ornamental vegetable garden looks even better with short climbing roses trained on pillars at the four corners. Tulip bulbs, which are best treated as annuals, make a perfect addition to vegetable gardens. You can dig up the spent tulips as you install your vegetable starter plants.
I like unusual edible/ornamental pairings. For example, alternating a low-growing herb, like thyme or parsley with sweet alyssum creates an interesting edging for a rose bed. Strawberry plants also make a good edging, though after the first year you may have to work to keep them in bounds. For that matter, if your garden is large, you could plant cabbages around the perimeter of your rose bed. This would be especially appropriate if you grow old-fashioned cabbage roses.
You can also use various varieties of thyme as creeping groundcovers in almost any garden setting.
If you have a cottage-type garden, you can really mix things up, just as the original Old World cottagers did. Most of them were people of modest means who grew lots of different things in relatively small spaces. An authentic cottage garden would almost certainly have a mix of vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs growing wherever there was enough space.
Whatever you grow, just remember not to be smug about it. Growing anything is better than growing nothing. Ornamentals are less fashionable than vegetables right now, but the pendulum will swing back eventually. In the meantime, if you are an ornamental gardener who feels beleaguered, remember that your “cut and come again” zinnias are every bit as virtuous as your neighbor’s giant zucchini.