Ornamental Vegetable Garden:
Beautiful Plants, Flowers, and Ideas
★ SaveAn ornamental vegetable garden is as pretty as it is productive. With colorful vegetables, a few flowers, and a thoughtful layout, your garden can be a beautiful part of your landscape and still feed your family.
You don't need a big space. A raised bed by the patio, a circle garden, or a group of containers can all be ornamental.
From My Garden
A perfectly tended vegetable garden can be very beautiful on its own. But adding a border, or patches of flowers such as marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums, or forget-me-nots, can bring an eye-catching splash of color to the prettiest garden.
The flowers are also a welcome distraction when the gardening season is winding down and your vegetable plants are no longer lush. The zinnias are also great for gathering bouquets to enjoy indoors.
My sister once had a border of beautiful dahlias around her vegetable garden. They formed a beautiful, tall living fence around her garden by summer's end, when her vegetables were not at their most attractive stage.
Charlotte
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What Makes a Vegetable Garden Beautiful?
Any vegetable garden can be beautiful. An ornamental vegetable garden shows off the beauty of the plants, and the vegetables are still good to eat.
- Keep it neat and weeded. A well-tended garden is beautiful all by itself.
- Add flowers. A border or a few clumps of annual flowers and herbs bring instant color.
- Mix colors and textures. Plant red lettuce next to green, or alternate rows of different leaf colors.
- Give it a frame. A fence, a stone edge, or a living border makes the garden look finished.
Beautiful Garden Designs
The shape of your garden can be ornamental too. Here are ideas for every kind of garden:
Backyard row garden
Surround it with a living fence of boxwood, raspberries, or blueberries, or a white picket fence that looks good year-round. See our vegetable garden fence ideas.
Raised beds
Edge them with stone, brick, or interlocking blocks, then tuck flowers in among the vegetables. See raised bed vegetable gardens.
Circle gardens
A round bed makes an ornamental vegetable garden the focal point of your yard, especially with a path or a center plant like tall sunflowers or a trellis of beans.
Containers and potted gardens
Look for pretty or unusual pots at garage sales, or reuse what you already have. An old cast iron bathtub makes a charming raised bed. Mix pots of flowers in with your vegetable pots. See container vegetable gardening.
Flowers for the Vegetable Garden
Flowers bring color, attract pollinators, and keep the garden pretty in late summer when vegetable plants start to look tired.
- Marigolds: Bloom all summer into fall, and are a classic companion for tomatoes.
- Zinnias: Bright colors, loved by butterflies, and great for cut bouquets.
- Nasturtiums: Easy from seed; the flowers and leaves are edible.
- Forget-me-nots: Soft blue color in the cool days of spring.
- Dahlias: Tall and showy, they make a living fence by late summer.
- Herbs: Lavender, basil, chives, and thyme are pretty and useful. Lavender's purple flowers are lovely in dried arrangements.
See our companion planting chart for flowers that help vegetables, and growing herbs in the garden.
Colorful Vegetables for an Ornamental Garden
Many vegetables come in colors you won't find at the grocery store.
Lettuce
Red Sails and Red Fire are loose-leaf lettuces with reddish-bronze and green leaves. Cimmaron is a bronze romaine grown since the 1700s. Freckles is a green romaine splashed with burgundy, one of the best-tasting and slow to bolt. Galactic is a deep burgundy with curly edges, great for edging and containers. See how to grow lettuce.
Swiss chard
Ruby chard and Bright Lights are a must. Bright Lights has stems of orange, yellow, red, purple, and pink, and grows tall enough to be a backdrop for shorter plants. See growing Swiss chard.
Peppers
Black Pearl has nearly black leaves and round, very hot peppers. Islander has purple fruit without the heat. Bell peppers ripen from green to bright red, yellow, or orange. See how to grow peppers.
Eggplant
Eggplants come in dark purple, lavender, white, green, pink, and striped. The lighter colors are often less bitter. See how to grow eggplant.
Tomatoes
Sungold orange cherry tomatoes belong in every pretty garden. Tomatoes also come in white, yellow, purple, green, striped, and nearly black. See how to grow tomatoes.
Beans
Purple and yellow "green" beans add color, and they're easier to spot at picking time. Scarlet runner beans climb a trellis with bright red flowers that hummingbirds love. See growing runner beans.
Cabbage family
Red cabbage, orange or purple cauliflower, and purple broccoli add color. Maybe you can get the kids to eat their broccoli if it's purple! See how to grow broccoli.
Why Grow an Ornamental Vegetable Garden?
Kids are more likely to help pick, and eat, colorful vegetables. Purple beans, rainbow chard, and orange cherry tomatoes are a great way to get children into the garden. See our children's vegetable garden ideas.
The pigments that make vegetables colorful are antioxidants, so a colorful garden is good for your plate too.
A pretty garden fits in anywhere. It can go in the front yard, by the patio, or in a flower border, where a plain row garden might not.
Give Your Garden Time
A beautiful garden doesn't appear overnight. (Although weeds do!) Like a painter with an empty canvas, a gardener adds color and life a little at a time.
Every season is different. One year you're giving away tomatoes by the bushel; the next, the squash bed is all flowers and no squash. Find out why, learn from it, and your garden gets better every year.
Learn from other gardeners, but remember that every climate is different. Find your dates with our vegetable planting calendar.
Ornamental Garden Questions
- What is an ornamental vegetable garden?
- A vegetable garden planned to be beautiful as well as productive, using colorful vegetables, flowers, and an attractive layout.
- What flowers go well in a vegetable garden?
- Marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums, calendula, cosmos, and sunflowers, plus herbs like lavender, chives, and basil.
- What are the most colorful vegetables to grow?
- Rainbow or Bright Lights Swiss chard, red lettuce, purple beans, scarlet runner beans, colorful peppers, eggplant, orange cherry tomatoes, and purple cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.
- Can I grow vegetables in my front yard?
- Yes. An ornamental garden with neat edges, flowers, and colorful vegetables can look as good as any flower bed. Check your local rules first.
- How do I make a small vegetable garden look nice?
- Keep it weeded, edge it with stone or brick, add a few flowers, and choose colorful varieties. See small vegetable garden plans.
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