Any summer resident acquires a plot of land primarily for relaxing from the busy city life. But gradually the land becomes an additional source of fresh vitamins, because it is illogical to go to the village, having bought a whole trunk of vegetables and greens. All this can be grown right at your side. The only “but” is a small allotment. You have to sacrifice either beds or flower beds, and young summer residents, as a rule, prefer a beautiful landscape. In fact, any vegetable can fit perfectly into the style of the site, if you show imagination. For example, ordinary potatoes were once considered an ornamental crop, and they were grown exclusively for delicate flowers. So in the flower garden you can find a place for him, and a cucumber, and even pumpkins. Consider how to properly create a delicious flower bed, combine crops and save money on the territory.
The best garden crops for the flower garden
Landscape designers have a scale of decorative plants. Some crops can be planted in any type of flowerbed, and they will look spectacular all season. Others are designed only for a certain type of flower garden and are decorative for a short time.
Let's take a closer look at the most beautiful among the plants commonly used for food, but which are perfect for your new vegetable beds.
Decorative cabbage
Despite the name, the culture is quite edible and is especially respected by the French. Bright colors and a corrugated sheet shape will give odds in beauty to many colors.
Cabbage is used as a border, the main culture of the lower tier and in potted compositions. The advantage of ornamental cabbage is that it retains a spectacular appearance until late autumn, even when it goes in arrows.
Ornamental cabbage loves to grow next to marigolds, which scare away butterflies from it and secrete soil disinfectants.
In long discounts, varieties of red cabbage, Savoy and cauliflower look good.
Bluish with a purple hue, the color of the cabbage is a bright contrast to flowering plants, but this vegetable requires a lot of space
Decorative varieties of onions
Again, the word "decorative" does not mean "inedibility." The three most beautiful varieties - chives, aflatunsky and slime have excellent taste. Moreover, chives grow feather in early spring, when ordinary bulbs are just beginning to sprout.
When creating a flowerbed with onions, it should be borne in mind that this plant can not be planted in the front row, since there will come a time when the foliage turns yellow and wilts, which means that the flowerbed will be exposed.
Onions feel best "behind" the plants that will bloom in summer or autumn and cover the empty land with foliage. Plant onions in a continuous strip or alternate with semicircular bushes. Looks great onion feather in an alpine slide.
1 - chives, 2 - aflatunsky onions, 3 - slime onions. Each of them is good in the flower garden.
Aflatunsky onion is appreciated for juiciness and light smack of garlic. Its fleshy leaves are beautiful only in the spring, but after it comes the time to shoot chic peduncles on a high stalk, and the feather at that time is waning. Therefore, aflatunsky onions are planted either in the background of the flower garden, so that it creates a dense green background in the spring, or in the center of the flower bed. In summer, grown-up crops from the edge will cover an empty place.
Longer than others, green onion-slime retains green foliage, since it blooms by July. Therefore, green spots in the flower garden can be formed precisely from it.
Artichoke and rhubarb
These garden crops can appear in the landscape as solitary plants. The powerful curly foliage and the beautiful shape of the bush attract the eye from afar. It is convenient to combine them with flowers, the stem of which needs support: gladioli, large-flowered irises, daylilies, since powerful stems in windy weather will also keep the "neighbor".
You can find out how to plant and care for irises here: //diz-cafe.com/rastenija/posadka-vyrashhivanie-i-uxod-za-irisami.html
1 - artichoke, 2 - rhubarb. Powerful plant leaves spread over an area of more than a meter, and a highly developed root system allows you to successfully grow in the shade
The artichoke sweeps up to 2 meters and is used as a central plant in a multi-tiered flower bed. If you do not eat his cones, then over time they will bloom with unusual balls with a purple whisk at the end. They resemble a common thistle in shape.
Foliage of rhubarb and artichokes is used in fresh salads, as they are rich in healing properties. So all housewives who dream of a slim figure should plant these giants on the site.
Green salads
Perhaps the most beautiful form of foliage is salads. Their juicy greens can become a decoration not only of the dining table, but also of the central flower beds. Especially spectacular from salads are curbs and edging rabatok.
Salad crops quickly build up green mass and look spectacular until mid-summer, until they release flower arrows
Lettuce, frisse, spinach, chard and iceberg form a dense ball-shaped foliage that looks beautiful on alpine slides, in containers and wide pots. You can plant salads along the blind area of the building, as they are not afraid of shady places and love moisture.
Radiccio, lollo rosso and oak leaf red should be introduced into the flower garden for the sake of a bright purple or reddish-brown hue. They add color to the lower tier of the flowerbed. By the way, ordinary table beets have the same rich color of foliage, so 3-4 can be planted nearby in flower beds.
Tea greens and herbs
This group of plants in the design of the site today is used quite often. Spicy and tea beds are now in trend. From spices for central flower beds are suitable:
- parsley (especially curly varieties);
- basil (valued for its purple shade of foliage);
- marjoram (highlighted in flower beds with a golden color);
- rosemary (attracted by the needle-like shape of the leaves and beautiful blue flowers);
- hyssop (unusually beautiful violet or blue panicles during flowering);
- sage (high growth and large blue inflorescences).
Examples:
1 - sage, 2 - hyssop, 3 - rosemary, 4 - basil. Each grass can be used in the flower garden as a plant of the upper tier.
And from these herbs you can make a “monastery garden”:
Among the crops that are added to homemade teas, on flower beds you will often see:
- melissa and mint (carved foliage resembles nettle, the bush is tall, but holds its shape well);
- thyme, the second name is creeping thyme (an excellent groundcover that will pluck as much land as it will be given to it, successfully combines in flower beds with alissum);
- monarda (A tall flower that looks good in the center of a flower bed, along the edge of a lawn, paths. It is easy to hide an ugly old fence behind a monarda. It can be combined with hosts, astilbe, cereal crops);
- echinacea (has spectacular bright flowers resembling a large daisy. The color palette is huge, forms a tall bush with solid stems that are not afraid of the wind).
And you can also make a flowerbed first-aid kit, read about it: //diz-cafe.com/ideas/klumba-aptechka-na-dachnom-uchastke.html
1 - thyme, 2 - mint. From the thyme, you can create "carpets" on alpine slides, and plant mint as a dominant in the center of the flower bed
Monardas are used to make teas from green leaves to help with colds, and they are also added to salads and fish dishes for flavor
Fashionable forms of "edible" flower beds
Since the fashion for garden beds has swept the whole world, landscape designers began to look for unusual forms of flower beds, in which both garden and decorative cultures are cozy. Let's consider the most interesting solutions.
Option # 1 - Marjorie Harris Chess
An experienced gardener from the Canadian city of Toronto, Marjorie Harris came up with the shape of a checkerboard in which green cells alternate with white ones. Plants create green color, and white squares are covered with concrete tiles.
As a rule, in the form of a chess create paths, planting squares with grass, but Marjorie Harris uses this form for delicious flower beds
What are the benefits:
- The tile accumulates heat during the day and gradually gives it to the soil at night, thereby maintaining a constant temperature of the root system of plants.
- It’s easy to take care of the plants, because standing on the tile you will not smear your legs.
- The weeding area is halved, which means you don’t overwork, and there are almost no weeds in such a flower bed.
- The light color of the tiles reflects the sun's rays well, and they better illuminate the entire surface of the plants, which means that the growth of crops will be better.
- You can use shady places, as there are enough reflecting rays for the normal development of cultures.
In chess beds, greens and beets grow most successfully.
Option # 2 - strict geometry from Andrue du Cerso
You cannot call this French architect a contemporary, because he worked in the sixteenth century. But his idea of geometric flower beds is undergoing a rebirth today.
The essence of Andrue’s idea is to divide the area of the plot allocated for flower beds into equal squares, each of which should be limited to a border made of boxwood or another shrub. The same area of flower beds will streamline the space, make it symmetrical.
Boxes for the border of flower beds need to be grown for years, so you can replace them with cochia or marigolds, which are easily cut to the desired shape
But inside each flowerbed there will be a drawing. On one plant, you can plant in a circle, on the other in rows, on the third in the form of the sun, etc. There is one condition: a maximum of 3 crops per square, with different colors of foliage and inflorescences.
It is the game of colors + strict geometry that creates the spectacular look that amazes tourists in the garden of the ancient castle of Villandry. And if you do this on the site, all the neighbors and guests will be in cultural shock.
Option # 3 - a multi-level spicy garden from Nan Sherman
California designer Nan Sterman called her idea "a multi-level garden of lazy spices." The essence of the flowerbed is to collect together fruit and grass crops resistant to drought and plant them in tiers, like the gardens of Babylon. Each tier has its own step, so that it is convenient to collect crops for breakfast.
When organizing a "lazy" flowerbed, it is important to properly position the irrigation system and combine plants with the same soil requirements
Nan called the lazy garden because the irrigation process there is automatic, using the drip irrigation method, and the whole soil is covered with a thick layer of mulch. Therefore, the owner only remains to admire the flowerbed, but to harvest from it. No extra work.
In such flowerbeds, Nan Sterman additionally uses a container landing to raise a certain tier above the ground.
Option # 4 - Crescent Garden by Deborah Princes
Another American florist came up with a crescent shape for organizing garden flower beds. Exit to the courtyard from the house begins with a semicircular patio, the surface of which is covered with tiles or other decorative material.
Three sectors-rays diverge from the patio, each of which is part of the design. In the extreme sectors, flowerbeds of herbs and garden crops mixed with flowers are created, in the central - dwarf fruit orchard + berries. Such a breakdown makes the territory whole, since all the rays "flow" to the recreation area.
In the recreation area you can install a gazebo. How to build it yourself, read here: //diz-cafe.com/postroiki/besedki-dlya-dachi.html
The greatest aesthetic effect of the crescent garden is received by the owners, standing on the balcony of the top floor of the house, from where the whole territory is viewed
Deborah Prinzing promotes the idea: everything on the site is good for a bouquet. I went out into the garden and cut - a pea twig, a bunch of basil, a daisy flower ... All cultures have the right to decorate the house and stand in beautiful vases.
Option # 5 - vertical flower beds by Amy Stewart
The famous American biologist Amy Stewart created the book “The Drunk Nerd”, where she offered readers an alternative to alcoholic drinks - flower cocktails. By method of research, she proved that home-made drinks refresh no worse than untwisted pops and low-alcohol mixtures. In addition, each flower, when added to alcohol, brings its own aroma and taste, and such drinks are akin to expensive perfumes for the elite.
For research, she needed a huge flower garden with spicy and fragrant herbs, and there was no place on the site. I had to use a fence and a narrow strip of land along it. All cultures were planted in containers at different levels. Thus the garden turned out vertical.
If you are fenced off from neighbors by a blank fence - make a spice garden right on it, adding curly strawberries and petunias for the colors.
The flower bed of Amy Stewart differs from the vertical beds in that flowering and spicy cultures are combined there, and mirrors are added for beauty
In creating "edible" flower beds, one nuance is worth considering: not all plants are friends with each other. Before combining beets and hydrangeas, parsley and roses - compare the conditions of their cultivation. Indeed, the level of acidity and moisture that one culture loves can be detrimental to another.
