Plants for Paths. To give an aromatic scent when trodden, the plants advised for paving may be planted to form a path, mixed or of one kind only.

Knot-Garden Beds. As a central feature, a bed planted in knot-garden style lends distinction. The simplest form is a wheel with the spokes made of compact herbs such as hyssop, rue, santolina or curry plant (kept clipped) or thymes. The segments between are filled with carpeting herbs such as chamomile, or low-growing kinds such as chives, savory or marjorams.

More elaborate knot-garden effects may be worked out. A friend of ours found two stone panels in her house of Elizabethan date, with fleur-de-lys and crown and circle designs, and these were laid out in front of her house and the outlines planted in dwarf lavender, and cotton lavender principally, with some thymes. The groundwork is in subjects such as golden marjoram and hyssops; also compact flowers such as pansies and pinks, which are in keeping.

Herbal BeautyOther designs for knot-gardens that we have worked out include a Tudor rose, a cinquefoil for the City of Leicester which appears in their coat-of-arms, and a castle.

The original knot-gardens, as the name suggests, were frequently worked out in formal and elaborate scroll and interwoven patterns. There is an interesting example at Hampton Court.

Herb Seats. At Sissinghurst, Mentha requieni forms the ‘cushion’ to a stone seat. Seats cut out of a bank may be planted with chamomile.

Low ‘Dry’ Walls. Two low walls constructed informally of stone, without cement and with earth pockets between the stones and with a cavity between the walls about a foot across, are delightful features in the herb garden, or in a garden where space for aromatic plants is limited. They may be used as boundaries to a garden. A low lavender hedge may be planted in the bed formed at the top and creeping thymes planted in the pockets to hang down and clothe the sides of the wall. Other suitable herbs and aromatic plants include the hyssops, calamint, Artemisia lanata pedimontana, Artemisia rupestris and in suitable sheltered climates, prostrate rosemary.

Aromatic Shrubs. Many aromatic shrubs are suitable for association with herbs in the garden. These include the allspice, Calycanthus occidentalis; winter-sweet, Chimonanthus praecox; Cistus ladanifer and C.purpureus, and others mentioned specifically in the list of aromatic shrubs on p. 93.

If the herb garden is walled, a delightful effect can be obtained by growing fragrant-flowered climbers trained on the walls. Amongst the most pleasing are wistaria, with musky, mysterious-scented mauve chains of flowers; white jasmine, alluring on the air; the homeliness of honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum and its varieties, and the Japanese honeysuckle, L japonica and its various kinds, including one with gold-netted foliage. The musk hybrid roses, too, have a lovely perfume and usually give a late flowering in autumn.

Chamomile and Thyme Lawns. There is a charming thyme lawn, a carpet of soft purple-crimson and mauve, at Sissinghurst Castle, once the home of Miss V. Sackville-West. Chamomile lawns form an up-to-date as well as traditional feature of the garden, in that many gardeners are planting them now to revive the historical idea. Bacon’s Essay Of Gardens mentions burnet, wild thyme and water- mints for treading—`You are to set whole alleys of them,’ he says, ‘to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.’

On Knowing the Plants

No geometrically correct plan will work out satisfactorily unless the particular tendencies, heights and habits of the herb plants are known. If a special study of the plants is not made, and the vague idea is held that ‘herbs grow about the height of sage’, then three 5-foot fennels will be made the neighbours of 1-foot-high savory on one side and creeping chamomile on the other. Old lady, which is delightfully smoke-grey, but has a tendency to flop over in late summer, will blanket the creeping thyme, to the latter’s distinct disadvantage. Tansy, 4 feet high, will sprawl visibly and creep underground subversively to obliterate the 1-foot-high golden marjoram. It is right to plant Plumbago capensis, a toothache cure.

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