If you struggle with poor pollination or pest problems, try planting these beautiful companion flowers and you can have a healthier and more productive vegetable garden.
Flowers are a veggie gardener’s best kept secret. One of the best ways to increase a garden’s productivity is through companion planting flowers.
Those not in the know may think gardeners grow flowers just for their beauty, but flowers actually help our vegetable gardens thrive, too.
If you’ve seen a lush, healthy backyard garden packed with flowers and all kinds of vegetables and wondered how to get the same results, companion planting flowers could be the answer you’re looking for!
Reasons to Grow Companion Flowers with Your Vegetables
I started planting flowers with my vegetables from the very beginning because I wanted to have a potager garden.
I’ve written about how much I enjoy growing a potager garden on this blog before, so I won’t go through all the details about that in this post. But I’ve found that the potager style of growing flowers alongside vegetables, herbs, and fruits, are not only beautiful but promote a healthier garden as well.
For me, it was a happy accident. Now that I’ve experienced the productivity of a thriving vegetable garden, I recommend all new gardeners to grow as many of these companion flowers in their potagers as well.
There are many reasons to grow flowers in your vegetable garden. My top five reasons include:
- Adding beauty
- Attracting pollinators
- Attracting predatory insects
- Increasing biodiversity
- Edible flowers
Of course flowers are beautiful, but they also support beneficial and predatory insects that help to pollinate flowers and encourage more fruit to set. If you’ve ever had poor production on your cucumbers or squash, you likely didn’t have enough pollinators visiting your garden.
Having companion flowers will support predatory insects like hoverflies and wasps. Predatory insects help control the presence of pests such as aphids and cabbage worms which can wreak havoc on a vegetable garden if left unchecked.
My fourth favorite reason to grow companion flowers is to promote biodiversity in my garden. Increasing the biodiversity of any garden promotes healthier soil and encourages different kinds of plant and animal life to thrive, which also helps our vegetable plants to thrive.
Finally, many of the companion flowers on this list are edible, making them beautiful garnishes for baked goods or vibrant accents to salads.
I go into detail on these reasons, along with four additional ones, in this post if you’re interested in learning more.
I love having a beautiful garden full of food and flowers that is also a thriving ecosystem buzzing with life, and I hope to help you have that same experience when you plant companion flowers in your own vegetable garden.
18 Great Companion Flowers for a Productive Vegetable Garden
Here is a list of some of my favorite companion flowers to plant with vegetables for a beautiful, thriving garden.
- Marigolds
- Zinnias
- Sunflowers
- Nasturtium
- Cosmos
- Celosia
- Dahlias (Open-Centered)
- Pineapple Sage
- Lavender
- Anise Hyssop
- Calendula
- Sweet Alyssum
- Bachelor’s Buttons
- Dill
- Borage
- Violas or Pansies
- Bee Balm
- Cilantro
Now that you know what my favorite companion flowers are, let’s discover what makes each flower a good companion in the garden.
I’ve divided the list into warm and cool seasons, so you can get a better idea of when to grow these companion flowers.
Warm-Season Companion Flowers
These types of flowers thrive in the warm summer months and will bloom until first frost if continuously deadheaded.
Marigolds
Marigolds are known for their ability to repel a number of pests because of its strong smell. Its roots also emit a chemical that can repel nematodes, a pest that attacks the roots of vulnerable plants like tomatoes. These cheerful, vibrant flowers are great companion flowers that are easy to grow, readily available as started plants or as seed, and will bloom prolifically until frost if kept deadheaded. Start with marigolds if you are new to gardening and companion planting.
Zinnias
Few butterflies, bees, or hummingbirds can resist the magnetic pull of the zinnia. Zinnias come in a variety of colors and sizes with new varieties now being bred every year. It’s such a versatile and easy to grow flower, both as a companion for vegetables and as a cut-flower for bouquets. I love this flower and have written a few posts all about zinnias here.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers easy to sow and grow and attracts bees with their huge flowers. Seed-loving birds like finches will enjoy feasting on your sunflower seeds if you leave the stalks after the flowers have bloomed. Sunflowers can be single-stem or branching. Choose a branching type if you are hoping to have blooms all season. Single-stem is best suited for cutting, for growing pole beans on, or if you want to grow the tallest sunflower in the neighborhood.
Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums are more of a trap crop in my garden. Trap crops are plants that you grow to attract pests and keep them off the plants that are more valuable to you. Aphids love the soft nasturtium stems, and they end up leaving my peas and other tender plants alone when companion-planted. Nasturtium flowers, leaves, and immature seeds are all edible. The flowers and leaves have a peppery taste like arugula, and the seeds can be pickled and made into poor man’s capers.
Cosmos
Cosmos are very easy to grow and attracts pollinators with their bright colors and open centers. It tolerates poor soil and really doesn’t require much care beyond deadheading. I like growing the open-centered tall types because I like seeing their flower faces dancing and waving above the low-growing plants in the breeze.
Celosia
There are three different kinds of celosia you can choose from—wheat, plume, and crest—and all of them should serve your garden well. I’ve grown all but the crested types, and the bees absolutely love them in my garden. Celosia is in the same plant family (amaranthaceae) as beets, amaranth, and spinach and the young leaves are edible.
Dahlias (Open-Centered)
If you really want to attract pollinators, choose open-centered dahlias which are easier for bees to reach the nectar and pollen. I love the fluffy blooms of other types of dahlias, but if you are growing dahlias primarily to benefit your vegetables, I would stick to the open-centered types. I’ve heard that dahlia tubers are edible, but I’ve never tried them. They really don’t look all that appealing to me anyway!
Pineapple Sage
Red flowers and a subtle pineapple scent mark pineapple sage as an excellent companion flower for vegetable gardens. I typically buy this plant already started at the nursery rather than growing from seed, but it grows quickly and can get big. Pineapple sage will flower all summer long, well into late summer and early fall if the weather holds, and its red flowers are beloved by hummingbirds and butterflies.
Lavender
English lavender (lavandula angustifolia) is a perennial herb where I live in zone 6A, but Spanish lavender (lavandula stoechas) is an annual. Each type require slightly different care, but both enjoy drier conditions and make excellent and beautiful companions to plant around the garden. Lavender flowers are edible, as well as the leaves. You will want to harvest lavender buds to have the most potent flavor for baking, brewing, and cooking.
Anise Hyssop
Anise hyssop is a total bee magnet. The small flowers are a rich source of nectar for pollinators. There are quite a few beautiful varieties of this plant, so you can choose the one you like best. Almost all anise hyssop has spikes of small flowers, smells like licorice, can be made into tea, and is edible.
Cool-Season Companion Flowers
These flowers thrive in cool spring and fall conditions, and may go dormant during the heat of summer. Plant these alongside cool-season vegetables, such as radishes, carrots, cabbages, arugula, spinach, or beets.
Calendula
Calendula, also known as pot marigold, is easy to grow, repels pests, and attracts beneficial insects. It’s often used medicinally for its anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties which can help with eczema, rashes, and insect bites. Calendula will self-sow freely in many gardens, so remove the flowers once they begin going to seed if you don’t want calendula to re-grow in your garden. Though, honestly, it’s such a great plant, why wouldn’t you want it to re-grow?!
Sweet Alyssum
Sweet alyssum is one of my favorite companion flowers. It’s edible, smells wonderful and is frost-tolerant, so you can plant it in early spring and expect it to bloom well into fall until first frost. Sweet alyssum attracts all the tiny pollinators and also beneficial insects such as ladybugs and hoverflies which feed on pest insects. Allow it to spill over the sides of your raised beds and it will look amazing all season long. I cannot say enough about sweet alyssum; it’s one of my favorite companion flowers!
Bachelor’s Buttons
Bachelor’s buttons, or cornflower, grows well in the cool spring and draws in bees because of its early bloom time. Plant these in winter to get the earliest spring blooms and pair with cool-season vegetables like radishes or carrots.
Bachelor’s buttons are a welcome sight in my garden, adding color in that awkward in-between season where spring plants are nearly spent, but summer plants haven’t begun to take off yet. Plan to remove bachelor’s buttons when the weather warms as it will die in the heat.
Dill
Allow your dill to flower and you’ll be reward by all the beneficial insects swarming in to fight the bad buggies. Dill self-seeds and grows throughout the spring and summer for me. If you don’t want dill to self-sow, remove the flowers once they start setting seeds. Flowers and seeds (and of course the leaves) are edible.
Borage
Borage has an edible flower that tastes like cucumbers. It grows a long taproot and needs to be direct-sown, but the benefit is that the taproot can help break up hard soil. To reap its benefits, be sure to leave the taproot in the soil when the plant is finished growing by cutting the plant off at soil level. Like dill, it freely self-sows, so remove spent flowers if you don’t want it to reseed.
Violas or Pansies
These classic cool-season flowers are a welcome sight in any spring garden. It’s easy to start violas and pansies from seed, but they are also readily available at nurseries in the springtime. Plant these among your vegetables to add color and diversity to your garden beds. I typically remove mine once the weather warms and relocate to a pot. The flowers go dormant in the heat, but begin to bloom again in the fall.
Bee Balm
Bee balm can be grown as a perennial or annual and, as the name implies, is a bee magnet. Grow this colorful flower to add beauty and attract pollinators to your garden.
Cilantro
Here’s another herb that you can allow to flower in your garden to attract beneficial insects like hoverflies and parasitic wasps. Cilantro grows best in cool weather, but bolts, or goes to seed, once the weather warms up. Instead of pulling out your cilantro, allow it to flower to encourage beneficial insects to stay in your garden. You can also allow the flowers to set seed and collect the seed to use as a spice known as coriander in your kitchen.
Great Pairings
Some flowers and vegetables just look and grow great together. The colors just pop when the plants are next to each other, or maybe the plants contrast and add a lot of texture in the garden bed. And although I have no proof besides a great veggie and flower harvest, I like to think that these flower and vegetable companions also help one another grow better!
One of my favorite things to plan for my garden in the winter is which plants I’ll pair in the coming growing season. I’ve tried a lot of different combinations with varying degrees of success, but there are a few standouts that I’m excited to share with you.
Here are some pairings that I’ve tried and enjoyed in my own garden.
- short marigolds with tall tomatoes (if you prune the lower leaves of your tomatoes, you can plant marigolds right underneath the canopy about 8-10 inches away from the tomato plant)
- sweet alyssum with cabbages, broccolis, or cauliflowers (frost-tolerant flowers pair well with frost-tolerant vegetables)
- open-centered dahlias with cantelope or watermelon shading the soil beneath the flowers
- dill (allow some to flower) and cucumbers (supposedly growing dill with cucumbers will make your cucumbers taste better!)
- yellow or orange calendula with Ruby Red swiss chard or Bulls’ Blood beets (the dark leaves of the chard and beets make the flowers pop)
- violas and pansies with cabbage (this combo looks great in a large planter pot)
- lacinato kale and pineapple sage (one of my favorite combos as the red flowers and smaller leaves of the sage contrast so well with the large, dark blue-green leaves of the kale)
- zinnias and hot or sweet peppers (I try to match the zinnias’ mature heights and colors that of the peppers I’m growing, and together the plants look one large plant that is growing complementary colored flowers and peppers)
- nasturtium and pole beans on a vertical trellis (I let the nasturtium ramble around the bottom of the trellis while the pole beans climb)
- marigolds and summer squash (I struggle with squash bugs, so I plant lots of marigolds around my zucchini to deter the pests)
Tips for Planting Companion Flowers
As you begin planning your garden, here are some helpful tips and best practices for planting companion flowers with vegetables.
- pair flowers and vegetables by season, i.e., grow warm season flowers and vegetables together
- pair companions by opposite heights or growing space, for example, growing short marigolds in the understory of tall tomatoes
- pair companions by complimentary or contrasting colors or shapes, whether in the leaves or flowers
- grow vertically
- be aware of growing requirements: don’t plant water-hungry celery next to dry, sandy soil-loving lavender
- remove plants that are done and leave roots in the soil
- deadhead companion flowers often to get more blooms
- use potted flowers to swap out colors and add in pops of color wherever needed
- remember to space plants out according to the seed packet
Your Flowers and Vegetables Want to Grow Together
There are so many great reasons to grow flowers and vegetables together in your potager or vegetable garden. You’ll be adding beauty, attracting beneficial insects, increasing pollinator activity, enjoying edible flowers, and experiencing overall healthier plants as a result.
I personally get excited thinking about what flowers and vegetables will look and perform well together, and I have so many ideas I hope to try this coming year.
Do you feel inspired to add more flowers to your vegetable garden? Or do you have experience with a great flower and vegetable combination? I’d love to hear about it!
Leave a comment below and tell me what you’re excited to plant this year or share your go-to companion plants.
Beautiful article.