Southern living October 2015 Article

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GARDENING PLANTS AND SOLUTIONS FOR OUTDOOR LIVING

'THE SECRET VEGGIE GARDEN

by KAYLEE HAMMONDS - photographs by ROGER FOLEY

OCTOBER 2015

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GARDENING

I DESIGN LESSONS

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Buy your fairy-tale arbor at a feed store.

Don't want to build an expensive and complicated archway? Con­ sider raiding a feed store or hard­ ware store for inexpensive cattle panels instead. Bend the panels over a path, and stabilize with simple stakes like the arbor above.

This simple solution provides a structure for asparagus beans to grow on and vines to climb. It also creates a shaded walkway from one side of the garden to the next. <IEASYIDEA2

Punctuate your garden with colorful leaves.

raditionally, we favor our flower gardens for their colorful beauty and our vegetable beds for their bounty of edibles. But combining both is something that garden designer, author, and television personality P. Allen Smith wants you to know how to do.

"This idea of making the vegetable garden attractive, compel­ ling, and very productive has always been extremely appealing to me," he says. Those who have toured Smith's Moss Mountain Farm in Roland, Arkansas, know that he designed it as a/erme ornee, or ornamental farm, an idea that dates to 18th-century England. It's not important, he says, that people be able to replicate his entire I-acre garden but rather that they can pull out some of his techniques as design inspiration to apply at their own homes. In that spirit, Smith shares with us some of the principles and ideas that help keep his vegetable garden gorgeous-even in the fall when beds typically start to look a little haggard.

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A patch of bright purple coleus (visible here in the middle ground) acts as an exclamation point in a sea of green. It's mixed with a casual effusion of vegetables and flowers to create contrast in the beds, while stately cedar tuteurs add structure and formality.

"Diversity is impor­ tant in gardening," says P. Allen Smith.

"I like to have a wide sampling of flowers, vegetables, and herbs."

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GARDENING

DESIGN LESSONS

VISIT THIS GARDEN!

To schedule a tour of P. Allen Smith's Arkansas farm, visit pallensmith.com.

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Treat pumpkins as sculptures and stumps as pedestals.

Hide your veggies amid pretty flowers.

"Laying out a garden is a little bit like painting a picture," says Smith.

"You want to have all of your paints in front of you before you start." Here, his "palette" consists of raised beds, pumpkins, and stumps, which combine prettily to create a tableau with multiple focal points. And the pathways between the beds converge into a single, dramatic burst of coleus in a simple wire urn. Creating several focal points ensures that no matter where you are in the garden, there's always something lovely to see.

Marigolds and zinnias dot this fall garden with merry bursts of color and can camouflage less attractive plants. But many leafy vegetables (like kale, lettuce, and cabbage) and flowering herbs (like chives, fennel, and borage) are both pretty and delicious. So as you plan, remember: There is no "wrong side of the bed" in the garden. By all means, go for a wide variety of flowers, veggies, ai:id herbs.ďż˝

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LEFT: Concrete chickens, hand­ painted by Smith, stand sentry over marigolds and peppers.

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