If you have decided to put in some edible landscaping, you may be wondering where to start. There are a couple of types of gardens that blend edibles with ornamentals. One is an English cottage garden and the other one is a French potager garden. Both can be beautiful and as simple or as grand as you would like. I will try to explain the difference.
The confusion between the two gardening styles are more practical vs esthetic, but borrowing on one another. The French and English had ties through the monarchies and borrowed from one anothers cultures and customs, including gardening and animal husbandry. Modern-day "organic gardening" and "intensive gardening" have their origins in old French gardening practices using companion planting of flowers and herbs with veggies and fruits, composting and keeping small barnyard animals, as well as many other simple and practical gardening-homesteading methods.
Potager is French, basically a kitchen garden, and traditionally was fairly structured in layout, often with potted plants and ornamental structures as well as herbs and flowers. It was separate from purely ornamental gardens, and close to the kitchen (potage itself meant soup). The potager had no association with poverty, as large estates kept them for the household. In France, approximately 23% of the fruits and vegetables consumed are home grown.
The Potager Garden was a designated plot; a special garden wherein was grown veggies & herbs for 'potage' (meaning, any plant you can eat), with flowers that were good companion plants for insect control or to improve the growth and production of the vegetables and herbs, and for attracting bees to pollinate. Many of the flowers were to be eaten, as well, i.e. Calendulas (Pot Marigolds), Nasturtiums, chives, chamomile, peas, and others, even roses. Orchards were often planted nearby for convenience as well as beauty and pollination, as both attract bees.
Potager Gardens could be quite formal (for the wealthy), or not (for the more humble classes). Paths could be paved and plots geometrically layed out and fenced with shrubberies or permanent structures (lovely, formal French manor-style gardens), or as in the provential kitchen "yardens" or small acreages, potage gardens more often had paths of dirt that merely wound casually through informal, asymmetrical plots of this and that. They were more often found right out the kitchen door of the humble French home for easy access and for safety and security.
Potager gardens were designed to be more practical, but not to ever be at the expense of 'esthetic appeal'. Even the practical could be beautiful. Beautiful and fragrant gardens promoted good mental health. It was a chance for some fresh air and sunshine out of dreary, dark, often ill-lit and sometimes dank houses. If your mind was happy & well, your body often was too.
Cottage gardening is English in origin and originally focused on edibles out of necessity. The "cottages" were just that: small houses occupied by people of very modest means, perhaps originally serfs who were allowed to grow for personal use or even market on the small plots allocated to them. Space was at a premium, so things were crammed together to get the most out of the growing space available-- also why cottage gardens include so many trellises, arbors, etc. Most would have had animals as well. Chickens for eggs, a pig for meat, a cow or goats for milk.
Cottage Gardens were designed to utilize a limited space around the home, often the front yard. They were neither formal nor geometrical in design. They seldom utilized perfect symmetry in lay-outs. Dirt or gravel paths that would lead you from one garden area to another, often totally obscured from the view by hedgerows of privet, evergreen, ivy clad rock walls or fences with tall flowers, like hollyhocks, foxgloves, or rambling, climbing roses. Arches and trellising extended the gardens farther into the air, so more could be planted on less ground and they could completely block out their neighbors for more privacy.
This lead to the romantic, flower filled gardens, complete with a rose covered cottage, that we envision today when we hear the term cottage garden. Clearly, the meaning of both has evolved over the years, particularly in the last century, as fewer people in western society depended on what they could produce to eat. Now we often think of the cottage garden as strictly ornamental, a style rather than a necessity; and of the potager as a charming way to grow vegetables in an ornamental setting.
No matter which style of garden you decide will work best for you, remember to amend your soil with lots of organic compost, water deeply and less frequently using drip irrigation or other water wise irrigation, and mulch to retain as much moisture as possible. If you are going to plant a lot of ornamentals, look for native plants that will thrive in our mountain landscape and have low water requirements. If you are going to do a mix of edibles and ornamentals, make sure you plant plants with similiar water and light requirements together, such as roses and tomatoes.
By doing your homework on a plant's light and water needs, you can create a beautiful garden that thrives here on our mountain and provides you with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and is beautiful to look at as well.
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