The herb garden can be anything from a yard-square patch near the kitchen door to a formal and decorative garden 200 feet square. One great aspect that needs to be stressed is that a herb garden can be both fascinating and decorative as well as purely useful.

Secondly, it may be formal or informal in plan. The herb border outside Dunster Church in Somerset is a pleasing instance of an informal border, planted with a varied collection of scented plants, reminiscent of the way in which the herbs would have been grown in the old monastery gardens.

Again, there may be an irregularly shaped site in your garden, containing one or two shrubs or small flowering trees—not overhanging ones, but perhaps a lilac or cherry-plum—and you would like to turn it into a herb garden. A winding path, or perhaps one curling round the tree in an arc, could be planned, and herbs could be grouped to give a pleasing effect. In such a setting, the large herbs such as angelica, wormwood, elecampane and lovage will have plenty of space to grow naturally and can be arranged in large clumps, to increase and even produce self- sown seedlings (in the case of the first two) as they choose.

Herbal BeautyIn a small garden there is often a strip of bed some 2 feet wide bordering the path leading to the front or side door, or between the front path and garage drive. If you are tired of the half-hardy annual bedding plants, the front could be edged with golden thyme and other herbs, such as golden marjoram, rock hyssop, lemon thyme, savory, and red sage, to give an unusual effect and provide sprigs for cooking. These plants are neat growers, provided that the two latter are ‘bobbed back‘ twice during the course of the summer, and quite colourful.

A well-planned formal herb garden can make a central feature in the garden proper, and give some interest all the year round, where evergreens such as rosemary and evergrey plants, including lavenders, cotton lavender, curry plant and silver thyme, are used.

Features of the Herb Garden

Lavender Hedges. These give a sense of maturity to the garden, and a vista along a path bordered with lavender to some feature such as a sundial or garden seat is delightful. In smaller gardens dwarf kinds such as Munstead or Folgate Blue may be used. Where there is more space Seal lavender is ideal. If convenient, a double lavender hedge, consisting of a dwarf kind at the front and a taller one, flowering later, at the back, is excellent. The dwarf hedge could consist of alternate bushes of a mauve-purple kind such as Dwarf Munstead or the deep Hidcote Purple and the pink lavender, which is compact in habit. It is always risky to cut back old lavender bushes into the mature wood. We advise cutting the flowers with long stems, to include at least two pairs of basal leaves, in late July-early August, not later. If this is not done, a light clip in March helps compactness. If the flowers are cut long-stalked annually, the bushes will not get ‘leggy’ for many years.

Rosemary. A ‘pointing’ feature in design. A bush each end of a lavender hedge or each side of a gateway gives character. The specially upright-growing Miss Jessup is ideal for this purpose.

Low Hedges. To outline beds, southernwood, santolina (cotton lavender, sometimes called French lavender, a name also confusingly applied on occasion to the dwarf true lavenders, such as Munstead), hyssop and rue are pleasing and may be kept clipped back. Rosemary will form an informal hedge some 3-4 feet high.

Edging Herbs. Golden and silver thymes; also the green-foliaged lemon and common thymes are ideal. Chives, golden marjoram, parsley (remembering that this needs sowing annually), may also be used.

All these make a neat line edging. For an informal edging to form a mat on the path, pennyroyal, chamomile and creeping thymes may be used.

Paving Plants. Paved paths form suitable walks for the herb garden, and creeping thymes such as Lemon Curd, T.serp.`Coccineus Major’, and Pink Chintz may be planted in the interstices. It is labour saving to have the crevices cemented in the main, leaving some pockets leading to the soil beneath at intervals, particularly where two or three stones meet. Pennyroyal, Mentha requieni, Mentha gattefossei and chamomile are good.

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