I have a small garden in my backyard and I'm debating on what I should grow there. My grandchildren suggest me going for the more aesthetically appealing things, such as white lilies. I don't want to disappoint them but my heart lies in the vegetable field. Which ones should I choose?
Flowers are very pretty, and I love the ones in my garden. But you can actually make use of the vegetables (eat them) so they have their merits. I'd say go with what you want and they can deal with it. Or could you not do a compromise? Half vegetables, half flowers? Maybe separate them with a fence.
For me, flowers hands down. I love fresh veggies straight from the garden, but my heart and soul lays in the beauty of flowers. I love the colors and textures. My favorite type of garden is an English cottage style, with flowers just flowing through an area, a little on the overgrown side, but still with a "plan". I also love that flower gardens attract hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. Then there's the scents. I like to plant a mixture of perennials and annuals. I love to have color all season long (annuals), but I also like having the garden change over the season (perennials). There's just something so peaceful and full of grace about a flower garden. Yes, veggies are practical, but I'm a creative, artistic dreamer - I want beauty in my life.
I'm with you Mal, This year all things are changing for me, and that includes my personal gardens. For many years my husband, son, and I put over three acers to growing food for ourselves, and our extended families. What the famlies didn't eat, or what we didn't take to the farmers market for sale, we would let anyone who would take the time to come and harvest it themselves, have it. My son set me up with two personal gardening areas a few years back, 20'X20' and 20'X30', so I could have a flower garden. As I am selling 4&1/3 of my acerage, I will no longer have to find people to help keep thing in hand, and now I can really concentrate on my flower gardens, and even do a few veggies for my own use. Right now I am expanding the 20'X30' area to 40'X30". My neighborhood civic club is going to start a yard beautification contest, and I plan on being a contender.
Well, you have my vote!! For me, flower gardening is peaceful and calming. There's something about it that settles me, especially when I'm having a manic day. It's somewhat meditative. Vegetable gardening on the other hand is work. Rewarding work, good work, but hard work, too. I don't know why that is, I've never really had a huge vegetable garden like you've described. It's always something small, but I guess because it doesn't have the beauty of a flower garden, it just seems like work. Good luck with your flowers - post some pictures if you get a chance!
I like to mix the flowers and vegetables together. Since we do not have a specific tilled up area for vegetables, I grow them along side the house and fence-line right next to the flowers. Asparagus makes a beautiful fernlike border, so after we get done picking the shoots in the spring, it grows and looks beautiful mixed in with the flowers. Marigolds help keep away bugs, so they are planted next to the squash, and along the fence is a jumble of grape vines and tomato plants, with lilies growing up underneath. The side fence has morning glories and moonflower, and I am putting lettuce and spinach underneath those. Rhubarb is growing by the hostas, and the blueberries are out alongside of the roses.
I like both and plan to plant both this year. My favorite plants are lilies during the summer and coleus very colorful.
Why not both? Okra is related to Hibiscus and has pretty flowers. Sweet potato is related to morning glory and has flowers that I think are prettier than any morning glory. Many vegetables have pretty flowers. Some also have attractive foliage and/or fruit. Tricolor variegata peppers and Bright Lights Swiss chard are a couple of examples.
I'm doing a bit of both but more flowers than vegetables. The veggies I have going are tomatoes, big white onions, cantaloupe, watermelon, bush beans and corn. The corn is an accident from dropped seeds from my bird feeders. I haven't seen a single honeybee this year. The larger bumble bees and some little white butterflies are doing the pollinating.
Did someone say okra? My mom's from North Carolina and, needless to say, I love it. I especially like it pan-fried and browned in a little butter.
I cheat a bit with my flowers. I buy annuals and fill some planters. Love petunias and impatiens for color. A few bright lobelia thrown in. Not very hard to weed planters. Nasturians (?) have edible, spicey flowers. At our wild foods dinner one year a woman brought a tray full of the blossoms stuffed with a tiny dollup of cream cheese. They were arranged in concentric circles and looked like a work of art! So you can have both food and flowers. A friend grew them and other edible flowers to sell to fancy restaurants. Pansies, violets.... I have coneflowers and other medicinals which are pretty as well. Of course we have our veggies and have been picking a lot of raspberries this year. Gardens can be what you want/need.
We plant a lot of both. Everything was veggies for the years we had large numbers of children home, but as the children moved out, more flowers came into our life, mostly due to the wife's decorating tendencies. Most flowers are started from seed, and all veggies are started from seed. The flowers purchased are usually only for the flowers we can't locate a seed source for.
We also have a mix of flowers and veggies, but it seems like the birds and squirrels get them as soon as they are ripe. They chew chunks out of the tomatoes, and ate all of the blackberries just as they changed from red to purple. In the summer, we put the houseplants outside on the front porch and we enjoy them out there, and then when it gets cold again in the fall, we bring them inside again.