One of the greatest things about making an herb garden is there are so many choices. It’s also one of the worst. So. Many. Choices. Especially if you define ‘herb’ — as our ancestors did — as any plant useful to humankind. Which is why it’s helpful to have a theme. The theme can be sentimental (herbs that Grandmother grew) or practical (herbs to scent the closets and repel the bugs), or even disease-focused. For example, Topher Dulaney, a San Francisco landscape architect and cancer survivor makes inspirational herb gardens using plants that are sources for drugs used in chemo. But for most of us, mention herbs and we think food.
“The most common herb garden is culinary,” notes Harold Taylor (no relation) who oversees the herb beds at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.
Longwood has four themed herb gardens: Culinary, Fragrance, Medicinal, and Textile. The textile garden holds both dying herbs, like Indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) and Madder (Rubia tinctorum) as well as Flax (Linum usitatissimum), which is used to make linen, and Sisal Agave (Agave sesalari) used for rope. The Longwood culinary bed holds enough herbs to season several continents’ worth of cuisines, but it’s easy to make a much smaller, more individualized version.
“A culinary herb garden can be a container on your patio with some of your favorites like parsley, cilantro, oregano, and thyme,” says Harold Taylor. “You can also put in edible flowers like borage and nasturtiums.”
The National Arboretum in Washington DC boasts ten themed herb gardens including: Dye, Medicinal, Culinary, Fragrance, Beverage, Native American, Colonial, Asian, Industrial, and Dioscoriodes, named for the Greek physician who wrote the first medicinal herbal guide, De Materia Medica.
“Some of these gardens tend to be historical,” says Christine Moore, curator of the National Herb Gardens. “Education is a big focus for us.”
The Colonial Herb Garden holds plants that would have come over with the early settlers.
“They wouldn’t have known what grew here, so they brought their most important herbs with them,” explains Moore.
The Native American Garden is filled with the regional herbs the East Coast tribes would have used, while the Beverage Garden holds things like hops, used in beer, juniper, the key flavoring in gin, mints for tea and juleps, and strawberries, for tea (leaves) and vinegar-infused shrub (fruit), a favorite colonial drink. The Industrial Garden holds things like longleaf pine from which we get turpentine, and pyrethrum used for insecticides.
Inspiration for an herbal theme can come from almost anywhere including religion, literature, music, or art. A Biblical herb garden can hold Hyssop, Dandelion (Taxacum oficinale*) and Saffron (fall-blooming Crocus sativius). Shakespearean herbs include violets, thyme, and rosemary. A music-themed Appalachian Spring garden could hold wildflowers of the Piedmont, while a Monet Garden will draw from the impressionist’s many paintings.
If you decide to put one in a container, make it large enough to hold five herbs or more for maximum effect.
https://www.garden.org/subchannels/landscaping/planning?q=show&id=2184
* Linnaean name is also seen as Taraxacum, depends which source you use.
jenifer says
Thanks, Nancy. What wonderful ideas. Herbs are my favorite things.