I’m the type of girl who loves filling her garden with loads of chic plants that are equally farm-style and modern. I love the juxtaposition of country-style hostas alongside sharp, dark (almost black) coleus leaves. I have several gardens - one filled with bright chartreuse, deep green and touches of pink, the other filled with greens, burgundies, purples and blues. I fell very much into color-blocking during my time at Winston Flowers and try to stick to my palettes in everything I do, especially in the garden.
For a girl who loves gardening, I’m so anti-dirt. I hate when those little particles dig under my nails and melt into my knees while wedding or planting. Don’t misunderstand. I love what dirt does. I realize its value. I mix loam and peat moss and compost to make delicious homes for my little specimens. I just have to do it all with rubber gloves. (The cloth or leather kind don’t give my fingers the right access to the soil.)
In addition to wearing rubber in the yard, I garden a tad differently than some as well. While some keep a vegetable garden separate from most or all of their flowers and textures, I blend the two, seamlessly, into all my gardens. I find it beautiful to have lettuce grow alongside hostas, rosemary and sedums. I’ve created several gardens lined with farm-style rocks (rocks that have existed in our back yard for decades, perhaps since the origination of our home more than 100 years ago).
In these gardens, I grow lettuces, herbs, beautiful textures and all sorts of vegetables including eggplant, squash, tomatoes, peppers and corn. Even with my vegetables, I focus on color-blocking - putting purple eggplant with purple flowers and textures - never neglecting popping in some chartreuse or black or deep green to add interest.
And, while others load up their containers with seasonal flowers, I opt to keep my tomatoes off the ground, where little creatures can nibble, and assemble cool heights and textures of various tomatoes, peppers, squash, basils and lettuces. They’re tiny in this photo, but have already shot up 5-6 inches in the mere two weeks since planted. Some have sticks and frames ready for their final heights, while I let others grown down or wide to let nature do as it will.
I don’t always have a firm plan when I get started. This year’s incarnation grew from 4-6 hours of fun time spent with a friend who happens to be multi-talented. She’s a floral designer by trade and the daughter of organic farmers in France. She understood my desire to create beautiful gardens yet still use the land to provide produce for us all summer long. She agrees that there’s a happy medium between beauty and harvest, and we’re hoping we found it.
It wasn’t all hard-work though. We did permit ourselves to have a little fun and she created a beautiful little fence to hold my cat mint at bay. We used old branches from the holidays (I never throw anything away) to create a structure around the unruly plants.
I’m so excited for this season of plant growth. I get to enjoy the beauty of all these colors and textures while waiting for the supplements to my farm share to ripen. I’ll enjoy every moment, fitted with my skin-tight rubber gloves.
