I think that mixing them would look great. Yellow and purple are a great combination.

Both would be beautiful!

Mixing would probably look more cottage-y, while two beds of each would be a little more formal...especially if you put the colors across from each other on the diagonal.

Is your potager more formal, or more cottage style? Both are wonderful, so it just depends on what you want :)

I agree with how one looks more cottage and the other more formal. I'm just jealous that you get alyssum in the summer. Mine is only late winter, early summer. It sure will smell wonderful!

Thanks for the input. I definitely have a more cottage potager (given the chicken wire fence!) but a wannabe formal. Having them across each on the diagonal sounds like a neat idea. hmmmm.... But, then again mixing. I definitely like yellow and purple, catmint next to yarrow is a favorite combo.

Funny about the alyssum. When I was a kid, I always thought is was "my" plant when my mom put it in her garden because I thought it was called sweet alison.

Ali-b, That's so cute! Do you ever put "alison" under your vegetables, as well as using it as an edging plant? It does a great job of keeping down the weeds.

I love alyssum (pretty and such a wonderful fragrance) and try to use it all over the garden :)

lavender - do you just sprinkle seeds or plant out seedlings? It's definitely prettier than mulching (especially w/grass clippings)

I buy seeds, but I usually cheat and buy plants too. I can't resist them in the early spring. Alyssum and stock are my two big downfalls, they just smell like summer :)

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the stock is all lavender, white, pinks and purples LOL.

I've never used stock, but I love lavender colored flowers -catmint, lavender, anise hyssop (my fav).

We could do a lavender themed garden bed -- I saw a lot more variety in veggies available such as purple cauliflower and broccoli, purple cabbage, purple sage, and purple bush beans (I couldn't resist those). Might need a little white or yellow in there, though.

Ali-b, I love purple vegetables! I have purple sprouting broccoli, red/purple cabbage, climbing peas that have rose/lavender flowers, purple asparagus and purple pole beans :)

My favorite so far are the pole beans. I grow Emerite green beans, with lavender flowers, together with purple pole beans with dark purple flowers. They are just beautiful together. Oh, and I'm ordering purple royalty raspberries, with lavender alyssum underneath LOL. For the asparagus, I'm mixing purple passion with dulce verde (green) both from Scheeper's seeds. (So are the beans.)

I love zinnias, stock, marigolds, nasturtiums, and alyssum in the veggie garden. I also like to put evening stock with the peas. Not much of a flower, but at night they open and have a very nice fragrance. Stock is a nice (shorter) substitute for delphiniums, foxglove and larksprur, which I cannot grow (toxic for horses). I also like salvias and lavender. I want to try catmint and hyssop this year :)

I would mix. However, I agree that the two options would give very different looks.

One point in favor of mixing is that by putting marigolds all the way around, you're giving all the plants in the potager the benefit of marigold's 'protection' against the bad insects.

Definitely want to see photos!

That's true about the bug protection. I think I will be mixing them. Right now, I definitely don't want to show any pictures. After that crazy wind yesterday, 3 of my 4 tomato trellises blew over (even though they were staked in), 1 of my hop trellises collapsed. Plus, with the threat of near freezing tonight, I've covered my tomato plants for protection. (I really should have waited another week or so to plant but, well, I got impatient).

I think we've all done that...I usually do it every spring :)

My problem is that I always want to get tomatoes early (so there's a better selection) and then they end up either being planted too soon or staying in the house for three weeks. I've already had to replace the few cosmos I couldn't resist, after it dropped down to 20 F. the other night.

20 F! We got down to 34. Isn't this supposed to be May.

Well, the tomatoes made it although they're a bit bedraggled. I actually have some flowers on the tomatoes which is crazy this early. I am so glad I never got to planting out other warm seasons. Crossing my fingers that this weekend, I can get some more things out including the allyssum and marigolds. I bought an extra packet of allyssum to sprinkle around my totally ferned out asparagus. Should look pretty.