Upon first glance, there's nothing unusual about the garden at Audrey Heburn's Swiss villa, La Paisible. A photo from 1971 shows the actress casually strolling along, pushing her son, Luca, in a carriage. through the wild outdoor space. Totally normal, right?
Our resident Master Gardener, Rachel Bull, knows better. What appears to the untrained eye to be a random grouping of trees is a flourishing fruit orchard, and what looks to me like a tangle of weeds is actually a covert vegetable patch including onions (with seeds available from Amazon). Though the pair seem like strange bedfellows, the combination of orchard and vegetable patch works symbiotically, bolstering one another's growth.
Below, Rachel unpacks the companion planting in Audrey Hepburn's garden, explaining why this unusual-seeming combination is actually not so unusual after all. I also curated an edit of vegetable gardening essentials to help you recreate her idea in any outdoor space. Let's jump in.
Shop The Vegetable Gardening Edit
This trowel and cultivator set will not only be really useful for planting up your Audrey Hepburn-style vegetable patch but they look gorgeous, too. Designed by Martha Stewart, this set has everything you need to become a veggie wizz in no time.
Make like Audrey with a basket-style vegetable trug – perfect for harvesting your lovingly grown vegetables come summer. It has a distinctly European feel styled on the kitchen countertop after picking.
This anniversary seed set features a mix of vegetable and flower seeds that have become iconic varieties in American farms and gardens. It would make it easy to plant a garden without extensive knowledge of different seeds.
Designed for harvesting, these will be an essential tool in your vegetable gardener's kit and they come recommended by Garden's Content Editor, Drew.
Made from durable waxed canvas this apron will protect your clothing from stains and scratches, while the pockets provide ample storage for tools.
This 3-in-1 garden essential is a kneeler pad, seat stool and tool pouch in one. It'll save your knees and back when you're planting and harvesting.
Rachel explains the fascinating connection between the two distinct parts of Audrey's garden. She states: 'You might think it unusual to stumble across a hidden vegetable patch in a mature fruit tree orchard, but the idea isn't as crazy as it sounds. This kind of companion planting can help to improve the soil, reduce weeds, and control pests in a natural way that serves to strengthen the surrounding ecosystem. It's often a symbiotic relationship, with the trees helping to fertilize and enrich the surrounding soil, and vegetable crops adding nutrients or acting as groundcover to help suppress weed growth.'
Though there are dozens of plant options you can use to recreate Audrey's results, growing onions is one of the easiest places to start.
Rachel advises: 'Here, we can see onions growing in the small veg patch Audrey Hepburn stands in front of. Onions are a fantastic organic pest control, as their strong smell will deter aphids and burrowing creatures, such as moles and voles. They also have a shallow root system, so are useful for planting under trees as they don't require a large amount of soil in which to grow healthily.'
Audrey Hepburn's companion planting is an important reminder that the wisest garden schemes aren't always the most obvious. Even something as opaque as a vintage black-and-white photograph can be a generative jumping-off point for planting ideas with the right eye.
