In the course of conversation recently, someone asked me “What is a potager?” So I thought to myself, what a great time to write about them. Seed and plant catalogs are flooding my mailbox, there is still time to design and plan a potager for the upcoming season. Potagers can help save your food bills and they are a great show piece in the garden.
Early potagers were first popular in France as much as a thousand years ago. They also have their origins in old monastery gardens where monks grew herbs for healing, as well as growing food. Historians have gathered information about potagers from tapestries, paintings, poetry, and manuscripts written in classical times.
To quickly define potagers: they are formally laid out kitchen gardens that incorporate flowers, fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Some of the finest in Europe include ancient topiaries of rosemary, standard roses, espaliered pears, apples, and plums. Formal boxwood hedges surround the herbs and vegetables and keep the gardens looking neat. These days, potagers make a lot of sense where space is tight and more people are turning to growing their own food. One does not need a big plot to feed a medium sized family. I am always amazed by how much food I can give away from my garden every year. Some people are concerned about the appearance of vegetables in the landscape, so a potager might be just the thing, as they can be deliciously attractive when the dramatic foliage of vegetables is combined with flowers for cutting.
I like to think of a potager as a working garden. It is a garden that works for me, producing delicious fresh produce. I also work for the garden by feeding the soil, removing the weeds, and keeping out pests. It sounds like a lot of work, but as the ancients taught us: if it is well designed initially, is matched in size to your needs, and if you put a little work into it on a regular basis, you will be richly rewarded. They can be a wonderful place for children to learn about plants, insects, and the seasonal cycles. A great place for family bonding over a shovel, or the first ripe tomato of the season.
I like to incorporate several key elements in the potagers I design. First, you will need a sunny spot that gets at least 6 hours of sun per day. A level area is best; you can work with slopes by terracing, but this will mean considerably more work initially. The area should have good drainage and should not be the low spot in your garden. Primary paths should be at least 4’ wide to accommodate wheeled equipment. Secondary paths can be as narrow as 18” for access during harvesting. Destinations or places within the garden, for sitting and looking over the fruits of your hard work, are essential. Sometimes I like to just sit and watch the birds and the insects that visit. I always provide water for the little creatures, as many of them are helpers in the garden, and they get thirsty too. Hedges to define the garden are a must. Depending upon the size, I sometimes plant currants and raspberries on one side, especially if I can mow around the roving raspberries. Their thorns are good for keeping out larger pests.
A beautifully designed lattice fence can serve as one of the garden walls, on which you can grow plants, such as cucumbers, to weave through the fence. Vertical elements within the garden will help shape its character from just a garden plot, to more of a 3 dimensional space. These elements can be topiaries, or tipis. Gravel, mulch, or grass paths work very well in this more casual setting, but formal pavers look wonderful too, especially if you can recycle them from somewhere else. Many of the potagers I have seen have a small pavilion as the central focal point for sitting and relaxing beneath the shade of their vine covered roofs. Arbors are wonderful for defining the entrances to the garden. They should be designed to be wide enough for your wheelbarrow or wagon full of debris and clippings. The compost pile should be outside of the garden “walls,” but close to the action.
In winter, when there is minimal snow cover, the potager adds tremendous interest to the appearance of your garden. The layout of the beds, especially when defined with evergreen boxwood hedges, is a design in and of themselves. The topiaries, the pavilion, the lattice fence, paths, and benches all add to the feeling that spring will be here soon, and the aromas of summer days will surely follow through to harvest time once again.
Liza Lightfoot Landscape Architect. www.avantgardening.com
