Garden Design: How to Make a Peter Rabbit Garden
December/January 1996
By Geraldine Adamich Laufer
• The Life of Beatrix Potter
• Beatrix Potter's Herbs and Flowers
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Is your herb garden worthy of the quirky Peter Rabbit? Has he slipped under the garden gate to munch on the greens or sleep under the sage? If not, perhaps you haven’t hit on the right combination of plants. Gardeners in all parts of the United States have used Beatrix Potter’s rascally rabbit and the other characters of her children’s tales as an intriguing starting point for little herb plots that delight visitors young and old.
Take Beverly Anderson of Williamston, Michigan. Her Peter Rabbit herb garden gives her a chance to indulge two passions—gardening and grandchildren. “I wanted a garden where I didn’t have to say no, where the children could walk in and hug the bunnies,” she explained. “It’s really a high priority to share gardening and a love of nature with my grandchildren.”
Herbs from Potter tales are arranged around statues of the animal characters in a long, raised bed that runs alongside Beverly’s barn. Mother Rabbit and the little bunnies sit in front of annual and perennial chamomiles, Egyptian top onions, and Hidcote lavender, which she chose for its deep lavender blue color. A collection of thymes, blooming over several months and in several colors, cascades over weathered barn timbers used for edging. Rosemary, mint, sage, and germander grow between currant bushes planted at one end and a parsley border at the other. Propped up near a grouping of Benjamin Bunny’s family, a slate spells out “Please touch the herbs.”
Although poor Peter was a little rabbit whose eyes were bigger than his stomach, he did enjoy his vegetables. That’s what prompted Katie Leonaitis to want to plant a Peter Rabbit garden at her son’s elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia. Like Peter, many of the schoolchildren have no gardens of their own, but after selecting a sunny spot on the school grounds, with Katie’s help they made a garden based on the fine example of Mr. McGregor. Raised beds edged with landscaping timbers now hold parsley, sage, rosemary, chamomile, thyme, lemon balm, lavender, germander, mint, and parsley, while calendulas, snapdragons, nasturtiums, and violets bloom in gay profusion. In early spring, the children sow quick-growing radishes, lettuce, carrots, and peas that grow up on trellises. They also plant cabbage transplants and onion sets. To carry the project over from year to year, volunteers sow bush bean and cucumber seeds during the heat of August while school is closed. These start to bear as doors open in the fall and just as the crab apples are ripening. Peter Rabbit himself, in the form of a 30-inch weatherproof concrete statue stained a soft brown, presides over the garden and surveys the progress of the crops. Children who thought they disliked vegetables have begun to happily eat their own produce, flavored with herbs.