first time ornamental veggie garden-freaking out

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lavenderwolf Abilene, TX(Zone 7b) Mar 14, 2006

I have a 36' 16' area. It includes my gh and a few arches. I have always used rows to plant my garden. Now that I am doing a ornamental garden I just dont know what to do. I have read about them all winter, started seeds, and prepared the ground. I have come up with plans but after row planting it just overwhelms me to think about putting a squash next to a mater. All the pictures I have seen have the plants so close togather. So I have an empty slate and I am too scared to get started.lol Any advice??

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HERBIE43 Rutland , MA(Zone 5b) Mar 15, 2006

this is the first time i have heard of an oramental garden. can you tell me more about it. thanks

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Zeppy Shenandoah Valley, VA(Zone 6b) Mar 15, 2006

Just plunge in, lavender, and keep the Perfection Monster at bay. It'll be great, and you'll learn a lot, and I bet you'll have less bugs! I do beds, not rows, but we cram em full of flowers and vines too.

(Last year my squash crawled out of its bed and planted a foot into the tomato bed.)

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lavenderwolf Abilene, TX(Zone 7b) Mar 15, 2006

I would love to tell you about them. they are decorative as well as functional. Most have an outside border like a fence, wall, or plants. U mix herbs, veggies, flowers, and fruit. Potager gardens use boxwood shrubs. They also have designs made from the plants. The ones I have seen and my own have benches, arbors, birdbaths, ponds, and things like that. My goal is to not just have row after row of veggies but a place to relax. I cant wait to walk through my garden picking veggies, herbs, and flowers. I plan to have a lot of plants wildlife like.
Zeppy you are so right!!!! I have a perfection problem. lol I dig up plants and move them on a regular basis. Poor plants. I think I will just DO IT and learn from my mistakes.

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Zeppy Shenandoah Valley, VA(Zone 6b) Mar 15, 2006

Sounds like the outside borders function both visually and practically as, say, a windbreak.

I would KILL for a big brick-walled garden like the Victorian kind, where you train fruit trees up on the borders and it's a perfect little microclimate. Sigh.

Would love to see pics, Lavender.

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dmj1218 west Houston, TX(Zone 9a) Mar 15, 2006

I do mixed plantings but boxwood shrubs in this part of Texas--no way. It would work better for you, in my opinion, if you used native shrubs in their place. Here's a mixed bed of antigue daylillies, Louisiana iris, 5 tomatoes, a medium sized live oak tree, cucumbers up trellis, Tx native Hinkley's yellow Columbine, and a chinese wisiteria. That's a russelia to the left and I really need to "weed-eat" my brick path today!

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