2022 Review: Flower beds

And my interplanted flowers in general.

I am a food gardener first, and a flower grower second. And largely this is also how the garden gets planted. My food takes prime square footage and flowers add interest but never (ideally) impact vegetable production. There are 3 beds where I do plant exclusively flowers with kale, and they are adjacent to our patios. That’s where I get to explore most often.

I’ve learned that I love using globe amaranth as a border plant in these beds. It tops out under 2’ but blooms profusely and creates luscious mounds come August that hold steady until our first hard frost. I only use it though in these designated beds because of its tuftiness … it would definitely compete for leaf area (sunshine!) with veggies if interplanted with food, especially lower growing vegetables. So it will remain a flower bed only flower.

Bicolor Rose globe amananth (also known as gomphrena, it’s latin name) is also an excellent everlasting (dried) flower too.

And I remain committed to a yellow-free zinnia planting. I grow orange, pink, coral, wine/burgundy, and purple-ish colors too. Color is as important as texture. I do block off areas around the garden for zinnia because they are such a butterfly magnet and are just gorgeous. It’s a good thing we have such a big garden because I don’t try to interplant around them — it’s futile. They live at the edge of our corn bed, ring our smaller patio, and are strategically planted in groups of 3 or so plants about every other bed in alternating areas. This creates a long, connected view, tied together with zinnia.

Sesame is a flower and an incredible food too. This is becoming a more important flower to me. I grew about 3 times as many this year and we have loads of seeds to share, gift, and enjoy in our kitchen. It could easily be the centerpiece of a flower bed outside your raised beds. It somewhat resembles foxglove with tubular flowers. They are quite precious, but I may splurge and bake something wonderful with some of them. I grew this interplanted in my small triangle bed between bush beans and ornamental corn. It gets quite tall and would benefit from a little staking, but it’s worth it. I’ll share more details about growing sesame this winter.

Nasturtiums are another absolute must-grow for me. I’ve been growing them annually for 20 years. I love the unique foliage and the edible qualities of the flower (and leaves, though we mostly just nosh the flowers). You can even ferment the seeds into “capers”, so this is a very useful plant to have in your garden if you love playing with your produce. I use them as a border plant with veggies mostly, and have in the past lined our north orchard with them too, which was a gorgeous massing of about 50’ of flowering puffs of beauty. Nasturtiums get started indoors in early to mid April, but don’t get transplanted until after our last spring frost.

Ladybird nasturtium is a new favorite of mine. This photo doesn’t do it justice!

Sweet alyssum gets planted here, there, and everywhere. Two places I always plant it is along the main path and under my tomatoes, both determinate and indeterminate. It is a magnet for hoverflies, which are predatory insects. We have thousands of them that make their home in our veggie garden annually. It’s a joy to watch! I have started to grow more pink alyssum and less white. The white is a requisite though under my tomatoes because it pairs better with yellows, reds, and oranges than. the pink would. It can cause a problem, though, as happened with some self-seeded alyssum with my fall brassicas that were growing in our 2021 tomato bed — it ended up competing with and partly shading out some of the struggling brassicas. It had a head start, which was part of the problem, and I let it go to see what would happen. They are two plants with somewhat similar growth habits, and that’s why, I suspect, it was so troubling. It would have been a more innocuous volunteer flower with pole beans, corn, cucumber, or any other vining or taller crop.

I sow alyssum indoors by April 1 or sooner to get a jump on early flowers for insects — it’s cold hardy so gets transplanted by end of April after being hardened off.

Another winner for me was this intentionally planted border of mixed nasturtium … next year maybe I’ll go for a massing of Ladybird only, though I do love the dark foliage of Bloody Mary which you can see in the bed behind the Pink Ladybird massing.

Gem marigolds are the only type I grow, again, because aesthetics. I love their simple look, and they smell divine (citrusy). Plus, if I want to go the extra mile, they are edible and make a wonderful pressed cookie, and I like having that option in my garden. I only grow them with our peppers. It works, mostly, though some years they do smother some of the pepper plants. Peppers grow so slowly here until about late July while the flowers tend to take off and hog space, so it’s a fine line between having some color and interest in an otherwise very homogenous planting and ensuring the peppers have the prime real estate they need to succeed. In the end, we end up having enough peppers, for the most part, so I think it works. I usually plant them on the ends of the bed and in between as many pepper plants as I can along the edge, knowing they will mound to about 12-18” tall and wide.

What I’ll do the same

I loved the nasturtium running along the outside perimeters of the annual raised beds (the outside paths) and the alyssum lining the main path. That feels like a signature look for me, and I’ll keep it up. The nasturtium were a mix and that felt okay to me, even though it could have been a biggest impact to grow all the same type. If I did that, I’m sure I’d grow only ladybird which was that pink one I grew this year for the first time.

I want every angle and every vantage point from the garden to have color and texture, like this photo. This was on the west side of the garden looking across my patio bed (with Astro calendula) across the flowering potatoes, marked with some zinnia color and borlotti beans as a backdrop.

I also love my zinnia and kale planting by the patio too, and really enjoyed the interplanted Astro calendula especially early in the season. And I love to tuck as many benary’s giant zinnia into the garden as possible. Cosmos and cucumbers are another must-interplant for me, their foliage and growth a perfect match for each other.

What I’ll do differently

I will be planting the flowers more evenly to both sides of the main path. And part of the flower planting is being strategic with my vertical interest, aka vining crops, as well as with our bush type crops like potatoes, tomatillos, onions, bush beans, and brassicas. I will probably use zinnia as the focus for these bursts of color, unifying the garden. If I’m brave, I’ll limit it to 3 colors repeated across the garden (wine/burgundy, orange, and fuschia), but if I’m feeling whimsical, I may keep it a bit more chaotic and wild, which is more in line with how I garden.

I’ll share even more specifics on flowers in January and February — seed starting timing, plant spacing, and of course my favorite varieties, too.