Taking grow-your-own one step closer to the house, these are some well-designed planters that will allow you to keep a fresh herb garden on your table-top. Smooth, white patent ceramics seem to be the current trend. And what better background is there for plush greens and small, pretty flower heads?

Banner image Table-Arable by Myrthe Mandemaker
From top left clockwise: Weeds planter by Arwin Caljouw; Thymus Serpyllum ‘Snowdrift;’ Prepara Power Plant; Herb Pots from Garden Boutique; Diascia ‘Coral Belle’; Herb Garden by Officeoriginair; Factory Planter by Chiaki Murata; Urb Garden by Xavier Calluaud; Campanula Rotundifolia

The Weeds planter by Arwin Caljouw gently mimics the interplay between wayward greenery and urban paving. I would plant this with a low-growing, fragrant thyme like Snowdrift or maybe some good old garden cress – it’s so easy and quick to grow. Though the delicate sprigs in the photograph above make a lovely design statement, I would want to almost cover the surface so that only hints of the ceramic structure show.

Myrthe Mandemaker’s Table-Arable, an art piece that experiments with integrating plants and textiles, is so inspiring. She implanted germinated seeds into the folds of a table cloth, which sprouted into beautiful little pockets of green and purple. The idea is that you could water the table at breakfast and harvest at dinner time. Although not a feasible growing system, it captures the spirit of intimacy and connectedness we could all have with the food we eat. I’m imagining old split-wood tables with a profusion of herbs and leaves offering themselves to your plate, and skipping to avoid patches of thyme thrust up from cracked wooden floorboards.

The Urb Garden by Xavier Calluaud is a great innovation – a self-sustaining system that recycles kitchen waste, uses worms to create fertiliser, and feeds your greens, all contained within this attractive modular planter. No news yet as to when/where it’s available, but I predict it will be a big hit with urban gardeners.

The Prepara Power Plant is a decidedly more practical piece of equipment, a hydroponic reactor boasting NASA proven technology which basically means it uses a soilless material mixture to grow herbs from seed – a mervelous piece of table-top geekery. Less of a statement piece, more of a kitchen appliance, it’s designed to enable you to grow a range of fresh herbs indoors.

Similarly, Chiaki Murata’s Factory Planter series is a set of amazingly stylish pieces, a cross between sculpture and mini garden. It’s quite literally described as a ’slice of nature’ and I think it is the slender framework that attracts me most, almost like a window into a little green field. I think this would work best with something with blades – spiky chives maybe, or wheatgrass. Something beautifully green at any rate – a soft, sun-kissed shade wouldn’t do.

Officeoriginair’s Herb Garden for Royal VKB strikes just the right balance between design and functionality. It’s a fashionable sleek, curvy white planter that you can plant seeds or shop-bought herbs in. It’s small enough to fit into any kitchen or dining room without stealing focus.

The Garden magazine recently did a little feature about gardens on the table, featuring a range of pots planted up with succulents, bonsais and herbs. They rightly point out that having a miniature garden on your table allows you to use small plants that get overlooked and overshadowed elsewhere. Pretty, delicate low-growing plants like a Diascia in apricot or red are ideal, sown sparingly and combined with an edible herb like rosemary. I also think a small Campanula like C. Cochleariifolia or C.rotundifolia would be nice, particularly for outdoor dining. They usually form a lovely carpet of flowers but are so pretty they really should be seen up close.

I just came across this great tutorial on Design Sponge from Nicolette and Sarah of the Little Flower School, about the geometry involved in a simple floral arrangement. It sounds misleadingly complicated, but the diagrams show the basic idea clearly: that each arrangment consists of key ‘moments;’ that these moments should be visible from every angle, and that odd numbers are better than even.

Slightly more complicated is the way in which the centre of the arrangement can be split into a number of triangles, with each intersection being a focal point – which doesn’t mean you have to place a huge bloom there, but that there should be something of interest to draw or lead the eye.

I think the most helpful bit is the diagram that demonstrates the height of each stem in relation to the focal point, which follows an arc (see above.) This is key to having a well-balanced arrangement. But of course it’s equally important to play with proportions and dimensions a bit so you don’t end up with an unimaginative display.

My favourite piece in the above arrangment is perhaps predictably the ranunculus, which is so densely layered and beautifully bleached at the edges. I also think the Dusty Miller (Senecio bicolor cineraria) is a lovely addition.

Here are some other beautiful arrangements…

1st row Nicolette Camille
2nd row Laura Dowling
3rd row Little Flower School