Growing Herbs

Herbs are so useful, they merit a part of the garden to themselves – ideally, a sunny position near the kitchen door where they can be picked easily. This is not always possible, but herbs are so adaptable that they will thrive among flowers in a border, in pots on a patio, in a window box, even in pots on a windowsill. They need free-draining, fertile soil or compost that is not too rich.

Planning a herb bed
Before planting a herb bed, draw up a plan. Put taller herbs, such as angelica, dill, fennel and rosemary at the back, and smaller ones near the front. There are many elaborate designs for herb gardens, including a chessboard design in which different herbs are planted in the ‘black’ squares and paving or gravel fill the ‘white’ squares. If you enjoy growing herbs, you could devise a pattern of your own. Your choice of herbs depends on taste, but no herb garden is complete without chives, mint, parsley, basil, sage and thyme. After these, the herbs that are most likely to occur in recipes are bay, sweet marjoram, oregano, dill, borage, fennel, rosemary, coriander, savory, chervil and tarragon. But part of the interest in growing herbs is to try something different, so a somewhat larger bed could include angelica, balm, lemon grass and lovage.

Herbs in a flower border
Several herbs make an attractive addition to the flower border. Angelica, for example, can reach a height of 3 m in rich, moist soil, and makes a fine backdrop for other flowers. Other herbs worth growing in the border are fennel, with their feathery foliage in bronze and purple; borage, with star-shaped blue or white flowers; thyme, with masses of tiny flowers; and varieties of common sage, with variegated or unusually shaped leaves and spikes of blue or white flowers. Parsley, onion chives and matting savory make lovely productive edgings.