K ing Louis the XIV wanted what many of us want: to look out a window and see a pleasant patchwork of flowers and vegetables in the backyard.

Not being much of a gardener – or maybe because he was all-powerful – Louis didn’t seem to care that the ground below his terrace at the palace at Versailles was a swamp. He simply ordered France’s most famous vegetable gardener, Jean de La Quintinye, to get to work.

The gardener drained the swamp, filled it with cartloads of good soil and manure from the king’s stables, and designed and planted what remains more than 300 years later one of the best-known kitchen gardens in France. The Potager de Versailles features 29 walled gardens that surround an ornate courtyard.

Then and today, many homes in France incorporate smaller versions of the potager, an aesthetically pleasing patchwork of vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit trees.

You needn’t be all-powerful, or even French for that matter, to plant a potager. In many ways, it’s the perfect garden for modern Americans, who often lack the space in their itty-bitty yards for a vegetable garden with long, narrow rows.

Potagers incorporate elements both practical and decorative such as brick pathways, pergolas, fences, hedges and raised garden beds.

A kitchen garden can be big or small, formal and geometric or whimsical and romantic. Whatever the style, the design is usually symmetrical and vegetables and flowers mingle together in the same beds. Potagers also incorporate vertical elements such as trellises or arbors.

A potager can be the centerpiece of a small yard or an element of a large one, a practical place to grow a variety of good provisions for the kitchen and a protected, attractive spot to entertain guests.

Classic potager

After years of dreaming and planning, Don and Mary Hale built a classic potager in their Everett yard. There are certainly whimsical elements to this potager but it follows a classic French design: symmetrical plantings, tall walls and brickwork.

The couple was inspired by trips to European gardens and President George Washington’s kitchen garden at Mount Vernon. (Washington was an experienced gardener.)

The Hales cleared and leveled 1,500 square feet, laid a pathway from salvaged brick and built two pergolas and a series of symmetrical raised beds. A tall cedar fence surrounds the garden with an iron Peter Rabbit gate.

Inside the garden, they combine permanent plantings such as raspberry and blueberry bushes and espaliered fruit trees with seasonal vegetables, flowers and herbs. In the warmer months, the straight lines of the walls and beds contrast with the patchwork of exuberant plantings and climbing honeysuckle and clematis.

Although the Hales keep an extensive garden, this is the spot they retire to at the end of the day. A table and chairs rest at the center of the kitchen garden. The walls warm the space and keep it protected from wind. In the summer, the place smells faintly like honeysuckle and roses.

Romantic potager

Linda Follett’s philosophy is that the potager should be a special destination in the landscape, a place that’s pleasing to the eye and a practical source of vegetables. The Arlington woman defines a potager as “a kitchen garden with style,” and gardeners can have the flexibility and creativity to define that style.

The garden she built with her daughter-in-law Julie Follett is surrounded by a white picket fence and a decorative fence made of twigs. It’s more the suggestion of a fence, rather than a barrier for keeping out the rabbits.

The focal point of this kitchen garden is decorative brickwork Julie Follett built of old bricks she found on the family’s 10-acre property and a white wrought iron table and chairs. Landscape fabric covered by a layer of cedar chips keeps weeds at bay between the planting beds.

Raised beds hold a combination of flowers and vegetables. The two have fun with their designs, choosing all purple for one bed, for instance: purple kale, basil, beets and flowers.

“People tend to make it too big,” said Linda Follett, president of the Arlington Garden Club. “You don’t need that much space.”

Plan a succession of crops; when the peas are finished plant another crop in its place. Don’t be afraid to snuggle plants together. Plant lettuce under the climbing beans; the shade will keep the lettuce from going to seed so fast.

Plenty of found objects become a cheap source of art here. Nasturtium and squash grows on an old wooden ladder with potted marigolds on each rung – an attractive and functional way to use the space.

“It’s whatever makes you feel good,” Linda Follett said. “It’s a feel-good garden.”

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.