Companion planting is an easy gardening technique for naturally boosting health and productivity. In addition to streamlining garden chores, companion planting can do some of the work for you. Awesome! We could all use a little help in the garden! You can use companion plants to help attract pollinators, deter pests, and even improve the condition of the soil. Lets dig in to some of the ways to experiment with using companion planting in your home garden.
Planning for Plantings
It’s currently mid-winter here in New Zealand, and planting season is fast approaching. It will be a busy spring for us, after last year’s work on soil conditions.
We want to grow more of our own food, but we also need to compromise. The current smallish urban garden has to look great for ourselves, our neighbours, and for resale when we inevitably move again. Our plans have also need to make compromises for gardening with pets. This includes taking care with potentially toxic plants and trying to protect vulnerable (or tasty!) plants from falling victim to our dogs. Lots of dreaming, planning, research, prep, and more.
What types of plants might be good companions? It all depends on the space and the objectives. And the timelines. Perennials can sometimes work as companion plants, if you have areas of the garden that won’t be changing often, like underplantings for trees and shrubs or border gardens. Elsewhere, groupings of annual companions can mingle and change with the seasons. Let’s look at some common companion planting aims and options.
Companion Planting to Attract Pollinators
Attracting and supporting pollinators is always nice, but it’s particularly useful if you’re growing fruits or veggies that need pollination. In an edible garden, attracting extra pollinators can help boost your crop quality and quantity. Companion plants can be especially beneficial for crops with a short bloom span or with flowers that aren’t all that attractive to luring in visiting bees when they’re alone in a garden, like the small blossoms on capsicum and chillies.
Some popular companion plants are edibles and some are just pollinator friendly co-plantings, so beware of what you can and can’t nibble when mixing in an edible garden.
Popular easy-growing companion plants to help attract pollinators:
- Alyssum
- Bee balm
- Borage
- Calendula
- Dahlias
- Lavendar
- Marigolds
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Zinnia
Deterring and Attracting (Yes, Attracting!) Pests
Companion Planting to Deter Pests
Some plants emit strong scents, essential oils, or have other natural properties that keep bugs at bay. Others are attractive to natural predators that will nibble on your unwanted garden guests. And, if you’re like us, keeping pests away is welcome help around the garden.
Marigolds are some of the most common deterrence companions. They can help repel aphids and/or nematodes below the soil, but they can also attract beneficial predators, like hoverfly and feed our beloved bees. Intriguingly, in my experience, they also seem to draw young pesky caterpillars onto their blooms, depending on where they’re co-planted. I’ll happily remove a few extras if spotted while I deadhead the marigolds next to my capsicums or tomato plants.
Garlic, onions, and chives are also good deterrents for many common pests, but beware of the scourge of rusts in high humidity gardens and loved by black aphids. As a bonus, if you don’t enjoy them as edibles, some also have amazing flowers that bees adore so you can still feel good about scattering in a few plants. I sometimes flick out my expired allium seeds to see what happens. Worst case? Nothing. Best case? Check out my leek loving bumblebees below!
Companion Planting to Attract Beneficial Bugs
Attracting predatory bugs to the garden for snacking on unwanted pests is a somewhat gross but natural way to boost pest control. If this sounds a little gory for your gardening preferences, remember that the lovely ladybug is one of those insects. They love munching on aphids.
As a note of caution though, especially if you’re a monarch friendly gardener, beware that some caterpillar predators are just as happy to attack your monarchs as unwanted caterpillar nasties.
Companion Planting to Attract Pests
What? Yeah. I know. Attracting pests sounds like an unappealing idea, but it can actually be very helpful sometimes. You can lure insects onto sacrificial plants (and away from high-value plant) for an early warning signal that pests are about. Damage is less of a loss, you can monitor or treat high value plants, and you can cull sacrificial plants before they hatch a new generation.
Nasturtiums are one of my favourite sacrificial plants. They’re low maintenance and bugs love them. They’re helpful for luring pests away from more valuable plantings and for spotting issues before they spread into the rest of the garden. Bonus for being pretty (and edible, too).
Companion plants to help deter and control garden pests:
- Alliums (garlic, chives, leeks, etc.)
- Basil
- Chamomile
- Feverfew
- Lavender
- Lemongrass
- Marigolds
- Mints
- Mustard
- Nasturtium
- Sage
- Thyme
Planting for Soil Conditioning
Soil condition can be aided with plants that help to add minerals, loosen with long taproots, and more. For many gardeners (self included) conditioning isn’t a companion activity so much as it is a general garden health booster. I’ve used cover crops in the past, and some of these have evolved into regular companion plants because of their ease and bee-friendliness. Alyssum is a favourite, but be aware that it self-seeds like mad, so once you plant it, you might have it forever!
Elsewhere, living mulches, like carpet thyme, sprawl across the soil under trees and shrubs. It’s also steppable, so I like to plant it in areas that still need to be accessible. Strawberries are also a surprise favourite for us (and the dogs…) and they’re thriving under our citrus trees.
One of my craziest companions for conditioning? Daikon radish. Surprised? Me too. I admit that I don’t much like the radish root itself. But OMG the young seed pods are truly delish! I’d grow them just for those. Bees love the flowers, I love the pods, the soil loves the taptroot, and it’s also really easy to collect seeds for replanting. And it rates as one of my plants of the apocalypse for ease of growing and output, pods or roots or both.
Companion plants to help condition soil:
- Legumes (peas, beans, etc.) for nitrogen fixing and soil structure.
- Marigolds to repel soil nematodes.
- Taproot plants for drawing nutrients and/or breaking up soils.
- Sunflowers and other plants with hefty root systems to help improve root structure. Bonus if the roots can be left to compost into the soil at the end of the season, too!
- Underplanting low-growing companions as an alternative to conventional mulch in perennial garden areas and/or under trees and shrubs. Carpet thymes and strawberries are favourites in our garden.
Although it isn’t companion planting, understanding plant friends and families can also be helpful for soil management when planning rotations in your edible garden. Heavy feeders can be replaced with lighter feeders, which can then be replaced with soil enhancers. This works particularly well if you’re rotating seasonally between beds or planters.
Companion Planting Pals and Frenemies
Companion Planting Combinations
Some plants grow better with friends. In simplest form, this might be a basic buddy system, like support for a climber or layering with under plantings of short shade lovers. Plants that act as natural deterrence to certain pests can help buffer vulnerable plants nearby from their enemies. Other companion planting combos, like pairing basil with tomatoes, are purported to enhance growth and flavour. That might be a bit harder to prove, but they’re tasty to harvest together.
While it’s a bit of a mystery as to how some companions enhance others, it’s much easier to understand how combinations can be used to simplify your gardening efforts. From a gardener’s perspective, it can be helpful to group plants (even if they are in separate pots) that require a similar watering and feeding program to streamline your work.
Avoiding Planting Conflicts
On the flip side, some plants just don’t get along and are best planted apart. In simplest form, this may be because they compete for space and sun, or they have different preferences for growing conditions. If plants prefer different planting aspects, soils, feeding, or watering, they’re naturally suited to being separated. Giving the plants what they need will be easier if they aren’t grouped, unlike the companion combos above.
Some plants are purported to have negative allelopathic effects on others. Allelopathic plants typically release biochemicals (either from their roots into the soil or from their foliage into the air) that can impact the growth of other plants around them. These types of plants are best planted separately from other plants that may be adversely affected.
Selecting Companion Plants for Your Garden
Every Garden in Different
The right plants for your garden will depend on your specific garden space, conditions, and climate. Gardening books are a great resource, but for specific planting guides, make sure you pick one for your local growing area. There are also plenty of online resources, including Mother Earth News | Permaculture News | Wikipedia. For more specific planting ideas, local nurseries and specialists should have great tips, like these NZ sites Tui | Palmers | Kings Seed.
Companion Planting in Our Garden
I like including marigolds, a variety of alliums (chives, leeks, etc.), lots of aromatic herbs, and I can’t resist a bit of lavender. The rest depends on what I’m growing, where, and when. Annual companion plants are favourites for our edible garden, but elsewhere many are pollinator-friendly permanent perennials. We’ve included many landscaping plants to attract and support bees in the broader garden. Manuka, creeping thyme, and lavender are personal bee-friendly gardening favourites.
In the edible garden, berries and brambles get seasonal border of pollinator friendly plants. Marigolds, zinnias, dahlias, and alyssum are some of my current favourites. They’re easy to grow and very low care. They also reliably self-seed or can be used to gather seeds for replanting. I occasionally let some veggies just go to flower as well, when space and time allow. I actually grow leeks just for the bees!
Parsley and chives are used as border deterrence in slug prone places. We grow more than needed, so the neighbours’ bunnies get to enjoy parsley bouquets. I like to let our chives flower for the bees and for edible flower garnishes, but sometimes they get culled as sacrificials due to black aphids. Ah well! Such is the cycle of life in the garden! I also like having a few nasturtiums as sacrificial offerings, as noted above.
Accidental Friendships
One of the most interesting companion combinations in our garden was discovered by chance. As noted in our berries and brambles post, our young feijoas are underplanted with strawberries. As luck would have it, the birds seem to prefer the pretty red feijoa flowers (bird pollinated) to pillaging the spring strawberries beneath, at least while the flowers last. Win win! As noted above, we also have strawberries under our citrus trees and they’re thriving. I jokingly refer to these as sacrificial strawberries as the dogs usually get them before we have a chance, but they do a great job covering the soil and look lovely.
Companion Planting Infographic Idea Sheet
The follow-on infographic was created many many years ago, long before Green in Real Life transitioned from Blogger’s blogspot to our home here at greeninreallife.com. The branding and design is outdated, but good ideas are always in fashion, so we’ve keep it here with our updated companion planting post so readers can revisit an old fav or new.
The circles in my Venn diagram (one of my favourite ways to look at relationships visually), represent some of the main plant types that we usually have in our garden, depending on the seasons. Nowhere near all that I’d like to grow, of course, if I had more gardening space. Large circles are common staples. Surrounding clusters show some of their planting companions and the relationships between those companions. Dotted lines connect the large circles to other friendly companion groups. Colours are loosely based on the corresponding plant grouping colours to help with visual connections.
