June 10, 2026, 9:18 am | Read time: 5 minutes
Marigolds among tomatoes, borage next to zucchini: Whether it’s sensible to plant flowers in the vegetable garden, the idea behind it, and which combinations have proven successful, is explained by myHOMEBOOK gardening expert Katharina Petzholdt.
A well-maintained vegetable garden has its own charm. Robust leaves and colorful ripening vegetables stand in orderly rows and spacing. However, if you deliberately place borage with its nodding blue flowers in between or let lush nasturtiums spill over the edge of the bed, this strict order is lost. Instead, the beds become more playful and lively. Flowers in the vegetable garden have little to do with a true biological symbiosis but lead to a very practical question: How sensible is this colorful mix really?
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Benefits of Combining Flowers and Vegetables
Flowers in the vegetable garden are not a magic bullet, but they can still achieve quite a bit.
Attracting Pollinators
Some vegetables like zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons rely on insects to produce fruit. Planting flowering plants like borage or phacelia next to these crops attracts plenty of pollinators.
Combating Soil Pests
Marigolds attract harmful nematodes with scents from their roots. Once the pests suck on the roots or penetrate the root system, the plant releases a natural toxin that kills the nematodes. Marigolds also help reduce nematodes in the soil.
Attracting Beneficial Insects
Marigolds attract hoverflies and lacewings, whose larvae feed on aphids. A single larva can devour several hundred aphids.
Flowers Can Distract Pests with Scent
The scent of marigolds keeps the whitefly at bay, which primarily affects cabbage. Borage also works through its scent: Planted next to cabbage, it is said to confuse the cabbage white butterfly and prevent it from laying eggs.
Also interesting: How garden design can succeed even for beginners
Flowers Can Serve as Sacrificial Plants
Marigolds and nasturtiums can be deliberately used as sacrificial plants. Marigolds are so favored by snails that they eat the marigolds first before moving on to the vegetables. Planting marigolds allows you to know where the snails are and collect them in time. Nasturtiums are also used as sacrificial plants. They are said to attract aphids. Many gardeners report that other plants are spared from aphids when nasturtiums grow nearby. However, the effect is not certain, as there are hundreds of aphid species with different preferences, and not all can be easily diverted.
Whether nasturtiums help against cabbage white butterflies is disputed. Some gardeners swear that nasturtiums distract the butterfly from the cabbage, while others report that the mustard oil scent actually attracts it, and the eggs are then laid on both the cabbage and the nasturtiums.
Improving Soil
Marigolds and phacelia loosen the soil with their roots and aerate it. Both plants can be worked into the soil after flowering. They are considered good humus formers and thus improve the soil structure in the long term.
Suppressing Weeds
Nasturtiums grow so extensively that they cover the ground like a living mulch layer. Weeds have little chance with this dense growth.
Good and bad neighbors for the nasturtium
Plants You Shouldn’t Grow Next to Cucumbers
Disadvantages: What Speaks Against Flowers in the Vegetable Garden
Flowers compete with vegetables for light, water, and nutrients. If you have already intensively planted a small raised bed, keep this in mind.
Flowering companion plants also require care. If you let marigolds or calendula fade without regularly removing the faded blooms, you’ll get less rebloom and thus fewer beneficial insects.
Five Particularly Useful Flowers in the Vegetable Garden
Tagetes patula is the most effective pest deterrent among marigold species. It usually grows compact and bushy, reaching a height of about 8 to 16 inches, and bears yellow to orange, often bicolored flowers from May to November. It pairs well with tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers.
The nasturtium tends to grow exuberantly. It spreads generously with its slightly bluish-green shimmering leaves and bright yellow to dark orange flowers. It is not only useful in various ways but also edible. The flowers make good edible salad decorations, and the leaves taste great on bread, in salads, and in pesto. It pairs well with tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, and beans.
The calendula grows 12 to 24 inches tall and blooms in yellow and orange from June until the first frost. The petals are edible and have a slightly resinous-spicy taste. It gets along well with almost all types of vegetables.
Borage grows quickly up to 32 inches tall. The stems are bristly-haired, and the leaves are rough and gray-green. The flowers hang nodding and change color from pink to bright blue. It pairs particularly well with kohlrabi and other cabbage varieties, lettuce, bush beans, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes.
Phacelia, also known as bee’s friend or lacy phacelia, grows 24 to 32 inches tall, has finely feathered leaves, and violet-blue flower clusters. It pairs well with almost everything in the vegetable garden.