Depends on what you want to grow, but why so much room to walk? More soil areas allow more flexibility. Make them bigger. You can grow more different things, different ways. Think of a garden as lasting and changing from early spring to late autumn. If you think you will end up with too much food, you can always plant herbs or have more ornamental plants in some spaces, then rotate what you grow.

My old zone was 5b so pretty close..... I didn't have a cutting garden per se, but regularly cut flowers from all around my yard. In addition to the flowers you may envision, don't forget the plants with interesting foliage that add so much to a bouquet. I loved using the foliage from baptisia in arrangements and also amsonia threadleaf as well as their flowers. They both last into autumn with foliage changing color and working well for fall arrangements. Zinnias are no fail, come in a million colors, flower shapes and heights and I love them for happy colorful bouquets. I had and would use salvia in all colors, coreopsis, liatris, gooseneck loostrife and more in arrangements - obviously I leaned more to perennials.

FYI, if you have overhanging trees, pea gravel is a nightmare to keep looking good.

Hi Anna, We have a very long pea gravel driveway, so are familiar with upkeep (and have a lot of help too). Also, this garden is largely full sun not much over hang.

Thank you so much for that list, DLM, going to research those.

Robert, It doesn't feel like a ton of extra room, it feels about right. Especially with the 4 large pots. In fact the outer edges feel a little tight (1'). To be fair we have some hyrdrangea planted that I haven't shown; might transplant them, I'm not sure. I will post some pics. What we have grown in recent years (well actually our gardener does it, so I may misstate things) is lettuce (in a few waves), broccoli and cauliflower (early in the season), cucumbers, tomatoes, and beans. Sometimes eggplant. We also do a few waves of basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, chives and mint. This is pretty much all we want to grow; ie things we use and things we find superior from our own garden.

My biggest question is what to plant down the center beds for a cutting garden, and if I am missing something in the layout

I just had a thought -- I like masses of plantings rather than a potpourri; what about doing the 2 rectangles down the center all with lavender? And then cutting flowers in the 4 pots?

One thing to remember, at least in our zone, is how certain plants interact, especially annuals with vegetables. Look up companion plants for the vegetables you want to grow and make sure you are planting things compatible.

That said, I often ignore some of those rules. Zinnias are prone to powdery mildew here, but I grow them anyway because they are so easy and I like them. This year I grew gomphrena (also known as globe amaranth) and they were even easier and I loved them. So pretty and you can dry them too. Not as tall as zinnias. Pollinators love tall verbena and salvias, so you might think about some of those.

Wheat celosia is a great cut flower and blooms until frost. It also makes an excellent dry flower.

lol PLASTIC is the material most long lived in the garden. Wood =maintenance and re-doing and most real gardeners would rather plant than stain.

Lavender doesn't bloom long but your season is short so you may not be looking for a long bloom. I have one that reblooms though--'Buena Vista'. The first bloom is in late spring and the second bloom is in early August, so I almost always have it either flowering or budding. If you have room for three plants in each planter, you could alternate Buena Vista with a white lavender or a lighter purple one for some variety and to stagger the blooms. Or you could put the lavender in the four pots and something else in the planters that will give you more flowers.

You probably know that lavender gets woody so you might plan to replace them after a few years. My plant is at least ten years old but I prune it like a shrub every year, removing quite a few branches.

Don't forget to include summer flowering bulbs in your cutting garden - lilies, glads, dahlias, crocosmia.

Maybe consider something like decomposed granite or other gravel that locks in place vs pea gravel that will move when you bring in a wheelbarrow or cart.
Lots of herbs are perennial and would be nice ways to anchor some of those beds.

Also, some food banks accept garden bounty, so your extra home grown food may be bless your local community.

Thx, gardengal, my list is getting longer!

Toby, I know nothing about lavender except i've always wanted a border of it. I bought a gardening book years ago just because it had a gorge lavender border on it. Thanks for the tip on Buena Vista!

Arcy, Well obv plastic is the longest lasting, and if my house were cinder block, that'd last longer too. Still kinda ugly tho. Plus, my guy is using red cedar. He even made me a prototype; it looks like a piece of furniture but then this guy is really an artisan with everything he does.

ETA: this is a prototype for the beds, in cedar.

Btw I'm not a "real gardener," I'm a dilettante. And that's ok I think.

Thanks, Anna, I love those fuzzy things, and now I know their name!

Outside, that's an interesting point about what plays well together. Does that apply even if they are not in the same beds, just the same garden? Love the gomphrena. Glad to see there are so many choices in cool colors, since warm colors are not my thing.

I'm trying to post some photos but all my photos are now HEIC and I can't post them unless they are jpeg. One of my kids is taking a Biz Analytics course and I wanted to sort of tag along and learn too, but I had to upgrade my Excel to do so. But I couldn't do that without upgrading my OS. And everyone says I should backup before I do an OS upgrade. But I couldn't back up to the Cloud because my OS was too out of date. So I had to find an external drive and wait 4 hours. Finally, after a day of this and a $70/yr subscription, I had a new OS and new Office 365. And for some reason, when all was said and done, my phone decided it was a good time to dispense with that clunky 'ole jpg stuff and to take HEIC photos from now on. I've switched that off now, but need to convert a bunch next.

Gee, tech is such a time saver.

The garden in May:

The garden mid summer

Garden late summer.. as hydrangeas take over. I think there are four; may need to add to my plot. Kind of bothers me I think they are on one side. Hmm.

But i think the pics show too that it is not too roomy. where you see the tall grey planters I would put oversized terra cotta pots, which we already have.

I love those stick supports you have and this general look

Bumble, How gorgeous that looks with the greens of the lettuce! Sigh,

So, on the side closest to the house, we do have 4 hyrdrangea, 2 in the corner and 2 flanking the North gate.

Just talked to my gardener, and he is going to split the 4 hydrangeas come fall, and make the South side of the garden match. The eight round things with purple swirls are hydrangea.

Are you the one who posted about a clematis on your arbor when you first moved in?

JjJ, Oh, we absolutely don't let it go to waste, even if I have to peddle eggplant to the neighbors. I just want to adjust the output so that it matches what we use and want.

As far as the gravel, one side of the garden borders a gravel drive, so I'd like it to be a close color match, but if i can come close on color and get a material that is easier in practice, that's a great suggestion.

I thought I recognized the arbor behind your garden. LOL, it's clearly memorable. So pretty.

Will you be installing a new irrigation system? The only issue I can see is that I don't like "L" shaped beds. The corners are difficult to access, particularly if you can't get at them from the back. i went from a garden very similar to yours (down to the gravel in between the beds) except that the beds were rectangular, to one that is "U" shaped, although square cornered, and the corners are a real pain to access leaning over from the front. I'd make sure there was plenty of access BEHIND the L's for maintenance. Does not look all that great in yours. As for pea gravel, if you like it disregard this, but the garden I maintained had crushed stone rather than pea gravel, a lot less drift . . . but no fun to walk on barefoot!

Hmm, maybe I will play with moving the L's in a bit, since it is all de novo. I think we have the room. Right now the only area that is tight is getting to the back of the tomato plants, between the L and the fence. But actually we can reach thru to get those; easy to spot!

I will have to see what our gravel options are in the right color ... barefoot would be nice tho

Mtn, I am by no means an expert, but I do know tomatoes can be affected by growing too closely to other nightshade plants (peppers, onions, cabbage for example). They benefit from being close to basil, garlic, and nasturtiums for example. And dill as long as you don’t let it go to seed. The beneficials will keep bugs away, and the others can inhibit plant growth. I think with your beds, as long as you aren’t growing them in the same beds, and not right next to each other, you will be ok.

I think the lavender might be nice for the pots, but it would also be very nice in the long planter in the center. You could do either, I just don’t think of lavender here being much of a ‘cutting garden’ favorite, although I love it as a pollinator.

BTW, I order most of my seed from Baker Heirloom Seed. That is where I found the pretty pink, purple and white mixed gomphrena this year. I direct sow in the ground and then didn’t do anything except water at first to get the seedlings going. They were so easy.

For your cutting garden - my zone is the same as yours, although due to location growing conditions may be quite different. Just focusing on perennials:

I have found that glads overwinter just fine. I keep one or two bronze fennel for their feathery foliage (and I do use the foliage in cooking), but your gardener will need to be diligent to deadhead before they seed everywhere. Same with both blue and red lobelia. Echinacea, spring and summer flowering phlox (ie woodland and garden), bellflower, lilies, mini roses, salvia, compact beebalm for perennials. If you have a good place to store them over winter, or don't mind buying new every year, dahlias are wonderful and come in such an array of sizes, flower forms and colors.

You might consider having your carpenter build a trellis for you while he is at it, one that maybe can be put up and taken down as your needs change. That way you will have it if you decide to grow a vining vegetable one year.

I am on the cusp in zone 6b but we're close to the line for a. My garden is 4 raised beds and I grow flowers and herbs. Between the beds are brick -- we had a brick factory in Fort Scott at one time and many of them are etched "Fort Scott". I have some perennials and some annuals. My garden provides flowers from Feb/Mar into October. We're on the dry side usually and so my plants need to be less fussy ones with not a big water requirement -- currently I have: 4 clocks, black eyed Susan, live forever, bee balm, peonies, day lilies, zinnias, cocks comb, Montauk daisies (they LOVE it here), mums, catmint, iris, marigolds and begonias, roses, lavender, lemon balm, mint, chives, sage, basil, garlic chives, rue, sweet pea, honeysuckle (the tame variety that doesn't go everywhere), marjoram, thyme.

And yes, the beds are really raised -- we have a digger dog and it was the only way we could keep her out of the beds -- make them taller than she is!

Outside, that is so interesting. Yes the lavender isn't for cutting, i just recalled that I love the look of a lavender border, so a straight run down the middle is similar. Off to look at Baker!

Raeee, Thank for the perennial ideas! I love Dahlias, have never grown them tho. We do have climbing vines of both cukes and green beans. There are some pots buried in the ground at the base of the fence for those. The fence itself is lattice.

Vines growing on the fences this year:

And sorry I don't recall who asked about irrigation. We've been using these for a few years: Hmm never occurred to me but couldn't you grow a vine on it?

I came back to update and realized I missed Martha Scott's post. That's beautiful Martha, and I love love love your brick. Lucky you. I love your gate too. And it never occurred to me until I saw your pic, but we have to take a hike to see our garden. I wish we could see it from inside.

Anyway, progress. I already knew what veggies and herbs I wanted to grow, but based on reading here, I decided to look into zinnias for my center cutting beds. When I was

researching them, this lady totally convinced me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ4aVsm3bvM I want to copy hers! I think in the four round pots that are movable, I might try some dahlias and bells of ireland or other things mentioned above.

Meanwhile my beds were made and are onsite - i think they look like bunk beds! I told my gardener not to put them in the garden until ive said goodbye to our tomatoes. : (

And I decided to get a sign for my garden gate that faces a driveway. I decided, after all, to go the affected route and call it a "potager." DH gently suggested i keep it all lowercase so that people don't think we are Mr. and Mrs. Potager. I took Arapaho's suggestion of keeping it just across the crossbar. It will be a creamy white w black lettering (black backgrounds fade too much I was told). The sign painter said a cabbage would look like a blob so we are trying a radish. I'm disproportionately excited about this little sign.

So glad that you found a sign that you love. Having been in the sign business my whole working life, if someone told you that black would fade, I'd get a second opinion. There are so many UV proof paints and (invisible) overlams now. The only colour that can't withstand UV is anything red/magenta based or fluorescent colours.

Interesting. And come to think of it, I ordered a quarterboard sign for our beachhouse and it is dark navy.

Mtn, you may be interested in a book called Cut Flower Farm. I checked it out from the library once and seem to recall her recommending what flowers are good for cutting, when it is best to cut them and what specific varieties do well in a vase, etc. She covers which flowers you can cut even if they are not fully open yet and other ones, like dahlias that will no longer open once cut.