Art in the garden: Veggies and flowers can mix in the garden

It’s a great option for any sized garden: mix edibles in with ornamentals.

Most garden vegetables can be grown in succession or in tandem with ornamental flowers.

Early maturing varieties of vegetables combine easily with later maturing flowers and vice versa. Heat loving vegetable varieties are ideal for planting in the bare spots left behind by flowering spring bulbs. Some vegetable and flowering plants look great together and perform well all season together.

Most vegetable plants grow best in full sun and should be paired with flowers that also prefer full sun. For slightly shaded garden beds, try lettuce, spinach and tomatoes. The tomato plants will be more floppy in part shade and bear fewer fruits but grow well enough to be worthwhile.

Rampant growers like pumpkins and squash can be brought into play by training them to grow along the top of a picket fence. The fruits will hang down below the leaves, making them more visible than if they had been grown in the traditional method on the ground.

Runner beans, pole beans and peas can be grown in the same way, making a backdrop along a fence or as a vertical focal point up a trellis or obelisk.

Most leafy green veggies grow and mature best in spring. Early spring crops of lettuce or spinach can be sown over the places in the garden where late-emerging perennials are planted. Balloon flowers, butterfly weed and saucer mallows all emerge late in the season and are sometimes beheaded accidentally with a garden hoe. Radishes and lettuce, low growing crops that are quick to harvest, double nicely as place markers for sleepy perennial flowers that are late to emerge.

Garden Babies butterhead lettuce is a favorite with its beautifully formed soft green leaves, sweet flavor and buttery texture. It is especially nice planted amidst newly emerging hosta. Garden Babies matures at about six inches tall but can be harvested sooner. By the time the hosta leaves have filled out completely, lettuce harvesting can be finished.

Baby beets appreciate the friable, rich soil that is often found in older garden borders with deep topsoil that has been amended through the years with compost.

Sweet, crunchy Round Romeos are petite, sweet-flavored carrots with smooth skins that need no peeling. Round Romeo is widely adapted and doesn’t need deeply prepared soil but does appreciate full sun.

Pixie Cabbage is an early maturing baby variety that quickly forms compact, dense five to six-inch heads with excellent sweet flavor. It tolerates both heat and frosty weather.

Tomatoes, peppers and squash are heat lovers and can be planted into the garden in early summer.

Tomatoes have a variety of growth habits, from low and bushy to long rangy vines. Choose the right variety to achieve the effect you want. Tomato fruits come in a remarkable range of colors and sizes, well worth researching for future garden designs.

The easiest tomato varieties to interplant with flowers are the smaller compact varieties. Tiny Tim, Cherry Gold, Red Robin and Yellow Canary are all very dwarf plants with small fruit. Patio is a strong dwarf variety with relatively large fruit. The Husky Hybrids (Red, Gold and Pink) are husky, dwarf plants with large fruit and an extended harvest.

Heat-loving peppers can be transplanted into the garden during early summer. Use them to fill in open spaces left by spring-flowering bulbs that have gone dormant. Good choices include Cubanelle, Cherrytime, Jalapeno, Red Cherry and Red Chile. These are hot varieties and grow 2 to 2½ feet tall.

Milder or sweet peppers that grow well in mixed borders include ‘Sweet Banana,’ ‘Lady Bell,’ ‘Gypsy,’ ‘Bell Boy’ and ‘Sweet Chocolate,’ which ripens to a rich brown color.

One of the best vegetables for the mixed border is chard.

Italian Silver Rib Chard was selected by discerning Italian cooks for its clean mellow flavor. These handsome vase-shaped plants have wide, silvery mid-ribs and crinkly, broad, deep green leaves. It continues to grow and taste great throughout the summer and into late fall.

Rainbow Bright Lights bears tender, brightly colored stalks topped with dark green leaves. It has a mild sweet flavor in a rainbow of colors.

Pot of Gold chard is a vigorous plant with crunchy golden stems and deep green leaves, striking in the mixed border.

Scarlet Charlotte is a newer variety whose crunchy magenta-red stalks contrast perfectly with the sweet, green, savoyed leaves.

When in doubt, remember that the vegetable varieties that will most easily integrate into a mixed bed are usually the smaller compact versions, often categorized as container varieties.

ŸBeth Gollan is a horticulturist affiliated with The Planter’s Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. Call (630) 293-1040 or visit planterspalette.com.