Combining Vegetables With Flowers

Here are some delightful food and flower combinations inspired by garden writer Rosalind Creasy.

  • Bush beans backed by tall red zinnias, ruby chard, and coreopsis.
  • Eggplant and purple alyssum, purple basil, and lavender petunias.
  • Carrots interplanted with low-spreading ‘Gem’ series marigolds.
  • Mix different lettuce colors and interplant them with Iceland poppies; back them with white stock or orange and yellow calendulas.
  • Sweet bell peppers with small, yellow marigolds.
  • White Swiss chard with red and orange cosmos and red Swiss chard, fronted by nasturtiums, or ‘Thumbelina’ or ‘Peter Pan’ dwarf zinnias.
  • Summer squash with tall marigolds and blue salvia—white petunias in front.
  • Tomatoes backed by tall cleome, hollyhocks in salmon, pink, and white—and in front, red geraniums and multiflora petunias to match.