How to design a potager garden

In mediaeval times the gardens of monasteries became more varied and decorative, combining many herbs used for medicinal as well as culinary purposes, along with vegetables and fruit, often in a formal layout inspired by religious symbols. During the Renaissance, the period of cultural and artistic development from the 15th to early 17th centuries, French gardens became immensely elaborate and with intricate, symmetrical designs. A marvellous example of a Renaissance potager still exists and is open to visitors at the Chateau Villandry in the Loire Valley.

English-style gardens of the same period had formal designs known as ‘knot’ gardens, with low hedges edging a symmetrical layout of beds, though often growing ornamental rather than edible plants. By contrast, a traditional English cottage garden mixed flowers and edibles, but in a cheerful informal medley.

Why have a potager garden?

A potager or ornamental kitchen garden is an attractive and low-maintenance way to grow vegetables and other edible plants. Potagers are perfect for small gardens as they look beautiful all year round, but they also work in larger gardens, where they make a cosy and sheltered space to enjoy.

Accessibility is a useful benefit of potager gardens as beds are divided by paths which can be made to a suitable width and surface for wheelchair users. Making raised beds is an option, too, as these are easier to use for those with limited mobility.
Potager gardens boost biodiversity as they include a diverse mix of plants, many of which – like herbs – have nectar and pollen-rich flowers to provide food for insects.

Minimising pest and disease problems is yet another benefit of potager gardening. Growing a wide range of plants together in smaller numbers, rather than big quantities of just a few crops, reduces the risk of problems occurring, also encouraging beneficial insects which boosts the natural balance of pests and predators. Taking this further by companion planting – the deliberate partnering of certain plants to deter pests – is easy to achieve in a potager garden.

How to design a potager garden

There are no rigid rules as to what makes a potager garden. Potager garden designs can incorporate design elements such as seating, a water feature, vertical features for screening, and attractive compost bins or wormeries. Planting beds can be made either at ground level or raised, depending on the chosen design and budget. As with any fruit and vegetable growing, it's important to ensure your potager garden receives sun for at least half of the day.

Grow a potager garden in pots

Use containers set out in deliberate patterns to create a beautiful potager garden in soil-less spots like courtyards, patios, and roof terraces. Choose a variety of container sizes of varying depth to suit different crops, from as shallow as 15cm for lettuce, mixed salad leaves, strawberries, and watercress, to tall and wide pots of around 40-45 cm for deep-rooting ‘hungry’ plants such climbing French and runner beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and courgettes. Raised beds lined with material to prevent soil washing out can be a better option to individual pots as the larger reservoir of soil holds more moisture and provides more room to grow plants.

10 potager garden layout and planting ideas

Plan the design

Measure out the potager area and design a pattern of beds divided by paths. A symmetrical layout is usually easiest with ‘L’ shaped, triangular, or rectangular beds. For easy care opt for no-dig beds no more than 1.2m wide, which will enable you to work the bed from the paths.

Focus on the centre

Creating a central feature in your potager garden makes a key focal point. This could be as simple as a square or circular bed with a feature in it like a sundial or bird bath, or something larger and more ornate such as a pergola clothed with climbing plants, or a decorative water feature.

Frame your space

Making a boundary defines your potager as well as creating shelter from winds, which helps grow better crops. Boundary options vary widely in style and price: a few examples are a formal clipped hedge, a framework for climbing edibles such as beans or berry fruit, rustic wattle hurdles, a picket fence, and fruit trees trained in fan, espalier, or cordon shapes.

Make a network of paths

Make interconnecting paths so the potager is accessible in all weathers, and to follow the pattern of the beds for free-flowing footfall. Paving or stone of some sort is excellent if budget permits. Gravel or stone chippings, on a weed-proof membrane, are much cheaper. Grass is an option but needs regular mowing, can become muddy in wet weather, or could wear and develop bare patches if heavily used.

Use vertical features

Add upright features like obelisks, archways, frameworks, or pergolas to make an instant transformation and create lots more growing space for climbing plants. A huge range of designs and materials is available to buy or make simple ones on a budget (or free) using hazel, willow, or bamboo stems. Creating ‘swags’ by running rope through sturdy posts is another option.

Make raised beds

Raised beds are ideal for a formal potager garden. They have many benefits over beds in the ground, including good accessibility, easy no-dig cultivation, and adding a good depth of soil if the site soil is shallow, poor, slow to drain, or heavy-textured such as clay. Make your raised beds to suit the design and budget of your potager, choosing from different materials such as wood, Corten steel or powder-coated metal.

Plant living bed edges

Miniature hedges or hedge-like edging plants are a classic element of potager gardening style. Plants must be naturally dwarf, or suitable for clipping to a low hedge no more than 30cm high, to easily grow crops within the bed. Good candidates include catmint (Nepeta), dwarf lavender, hyssop, wall germander (Teucrium), or bushy thyme.

Grow attractive vegetables

Many crop plants provide a feast for the eye as well as the table, so where there’s an option, enhance the look of the potager by picking the most decorative varieties. For example: Swiss chard with red or rainbow-coloured stems rather than the plain green type, lettuces with frilly or coloured leaves, cut-and-come again leafy salad crops rather than plants that need to be picked in one go, peas and beans with purple or yellow pods, and courgettes with yellow rather than green fruits.

Use companion plants

Growing flowers that attract pollinating or pest-eating insects to an edible garden, or with properties that repel pests and diseases, is a long-practised sustainable gardening technique known as companion planting. Many annual flowers with simple, single flowers are good for pollinators and being short-lived, mix readily with crops in a potager. Good ones include poached egg flower, cornflower, sunflower, cosmos, and nasturtium. Examples of pest-repelling partners are garlic, onions, or chives alongside carrots, to repel carrot root fly, and marigolds with tomatoes to repel whitefly.

Grow space-saving fruit

Many tree, currant and berry fruits work well in potager gardens. Buy or train tree fruit into shapes such as step-over espaliers for edging, fan, cordon, or taller espaliers for frames or boundaries, or train tall-growing berries like loganberry, tayberry, and blackberry as fans or on frames. Currants such as gooseberries grow well as standards with a clear stem. Though blueberry bushes need acid soil, they’re excellent to grow in large tubs if the soil doesn’t suit. Strawberries are small and fit in almost anywhere.