I love that idea...an Irish themed garden.

One of my favorite movies is "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. In the movie, there's lots of stone and rock...in fact, they joke about that when trying to dig out a garden area. There are also lots of references to roses, so you should have a few of those...of course, I always think a few roses would be nice. LOL

Old flagstone paths with moss would look good...especially if you have a place with a little shade...and I think you'd have to grow at least a few potatoes!

Lots of greenery and Celtic accents might be nice...although shamrocks and leprechauns are fun too. It sounds like a great idea :)

Well thanks, here in eastern Massachusetts we have LOTS of stone and rock, it's a joke here too. Even when you rototill rocks stop you constantly. I have so many stones of all sizes from digging up garden beds I know I have some I can place in good spots to make things interesting (and maybe some borders even!) And there is Irish moss at our Lowes!

As for roses, I have been meaning to put a beach rose (rosa rugosa) in our yard - I guess I could put it in the potager.

Thanks for the ideas - a lot of help! :)

P.S. "The Quiet Man" is my sister's favorite movie!

This might give you some more ideas===> "THEME GARDENS" by Barbara Damrosch

I think theme gardens are a great idea! Does anyone else have a theme garden, even if it's not their potager? I have the fairy garden (which is probably more a bee/butterfly garden) for my nieces to play in.

How about everyone else? Any theme gardens? Any you'd like to try?

I've spent the last couple days working on my potager with the French Impressionist painters in mind (especially Monet). It's fun to think my garden might end up looking somewhat like an Iimpressionist painting, but it's taking some redoing and moving of plants, and some vision because many of the veggies are not more than a tiny leaf.

But adding flowers has made a difference, which I guess is the point of the potager. I had some perennials that needed a new home, and the potager is it! Lavender, rudbeckia, and catmint will add shades of purple and gold to the garden when they bloom. I also have marigolds, and yellow nasturtiums, when they bloom. So these are opposite and complementary colors as Jennifer Bartley says in her book.

I will need other colors though. What are everyone's favorites? If anyone here has suggestions about other flowers or veggies for my potager I would be really appreciative!

This was a good reminder that a theme is a great guide to putting a potager together - but it takes time and patience to come up with things that will contribute.

What a neat theme! Plants blending and flowing and creating an overall feeling together....If you need reds, what about amaranthus, it gets pretty tall and depending on the variety has reddish foliage and pink to red flowers or a fruiting rosa rugosa that makes large red edible hips or pineapple sage that puts out some nice red flowers in summer. There's also a Colorado yarrow that makes pink, white and yellow flowers. Bronze fennel has great colored foliage. Plus, there's always dwarf sunflowers in a whole pallette of colors.

Cabbages and mesculin lettuce mixes have a wide range of colors. I think beans especially pole beans can range from purple, white or red. Eggplants put out very nice purple flowers as well as different shades of foliage.

How about some geraniums? In a potager, I always crave more bright colors and geraniums sound very french. White geraniums are supposed to protect your veggies by attracting Japanese beetles away from them, if you have any.

My favorite potager flowers are stock, evening stock, alyssum, petunias, zinnias, salvia, coneflowers (espcially with purple butterfly bushes) and all the flowers you already mentioned! :)

That sounds beautiful. I have some Swiss Chard "Bright Lights" that have colorful stems. I also picked up a purple basil--can't remember the name of it. Some ornamental kale would be pretty, too. How about violas? They are purple and yellow and edible. Thai basil has pretty purple blooms, too.

I didn't really have a theme for my potager, but one has sort of evolved. I have that "Potting Shed" sign, and have started designing around it. I have stacks of terra cotta pots placed around and stuff planted in both terra cotta and galvanized buckets/tubs. I have done really well on Craigslist finding them. Yesterday I got 50 pots of various sizes, a big 15-gallon galvanized tub, a wrought iron flower cart, a rake and a soaker hose for $25. Tomorrow I am picking up two huge decorative Italian terra cotta pots for $20. It's great because they are already aged.

Lisa

Thank you everyone for your great ideas - I can't wait to look for the things you suggested.
Rosa rugosa is one that I have always wanted to have, memories of family vacations on Cape Cod are what that flower brings to mind! Great to have sentimental things in the garden.
The geraniums, Swiss Chard, and amaranthus especially sound perfect. I found two French-looking iron wall hangers at The Christmas Tree Shop (a deal every visit!) and will fill them with geraniums and hang them on the picket fence down one side.
lisa33, I love what you are doing with your potager, I have been viewing your photos, and the theme you're doing is perfect! The pots and flower cart will be awesome.
I love Craiglist for gardening things!

Thanks again everybody. You all are so generous with your ideas. As soon as I am able to post photos I will.

Donna

Each of my little garden areas has sort of a 'theme,' usually a color. I have a white/yellow/orange area, a red/white area, what I call the 'wine' garden because it's all maroon colored plants and is opposite a grape arbor, a chocolate garden, etc. I also have a hosta porn garden. LOL It's all hosta plants with 'racy' names (striptease, climax, stiletto, etc.) I have some of the small hostas planted in an iron bed to carry on the theme. The one hosta I'm dying to get my hands on for that area is called Little Stiffy. ;)

Oh, that is rich. I never knew hostas had names like those. Makes you sort of want to meet the horticulturists behind the plant or maybe not.....

My Monet Garden is coming along, I have moved a number of perennials from other crowded gardens into one of the potager sections, and when everything blooms it should be nice.
Yellow French marigolds outline the semicircles on either side of the path, and there will be purple coneflowers, catmint, lavender, black-eyed susans, Shasta daisies, and red bee balm blooming at (about) the same time, and pumpkin vines in the background along the white fence. There are also American Highbush Cranberry shrubs behind the section along the fence. Also some sunflowers and zinnias in August.

What has surprised me is that fairies have invaded my potager! I normally don't go for putting much in the way of decorations in my garden (hence one of my other posts) but I saw these little painted metal fairies in a store and have put three randomly in the garden. At least one person on this post suggested fairies and now I have them and love them - they give personality to the garden, and just enough. Thanks for the idea -

Donna- Your garden sounds beautiful! I can't wait to see pictures.

Your flower selections are perfect and fairies sound like a wonderful addition to your "magical" Monet garden :)

I think that the Hosta Garden is the funniest theme I have ever heard of!!! I can just imagine the bed frame in amongst the hosta!! I am afraid to ask what your inspiration was lol.

Chickadeemelrose, Photos, please!!! That sounds lovely. I like your choices of plants - all my favorites.

Koicool1, My inspiration is that I simply copied what someone had. Well, she had the 'porn' hostas. I loved the idea. I added the bed frame as I saw one at a garden art faire and it was fairly inexpensive so I thought it'd be a cute addition.

I'd love to see photos of your garden, too. And how DO you add photos to posts, anyway? The theme of my garden is basically a French potager. I have a sign on the entrance facing the driveway that says "Bienvenue à Notre Potager;" my tomatoes, all French varieties, are staked using bamboo tripods as they do in the area of the south of France that we've visited, and many of my other veggies are French varieties, too. We also put up a stone wall behind our fig trees to try to help them overwinter better; eating figs off a tree in Languedoc in October was just a wonderful experience that we're trying to duplicate here.

I have little metal fairies - the Cicely Barker types - in the flowers around our pond, but nothing in the potager itself. In the middle is a brick patio with a greenhouse, though, and a metal love seat and bistro set, so maybe that's enough, along with all the daylilies and other flowers that grow there.