Creating a herb garden plan
Growing a herb garden is an excellent way to start your own garden without too much fuss or hassle. The first thing to do is to create your herb garden plan which will help you layout your herb garden to make the most of the range of herbs available.
If you get your herb garden plan right it will look attractive as well as having the added benefit of providing tasty herbs to eat and cook with. These are great gardens for children to grow too, since herbs tend to grow quickly and can be used from the time they are small sprouts.
When creating your herb garden plan, there are various things you should consider:
Design with different heights of growth. Plants should be arranged so that you have a varied but attractive design. Tall herbs should be planted in the background and can also be used a feature plants in your display. Medium height herbs are the main part of the planting and can be used in many different ways. Low growing plants should be positioned at the front of the bed.
Use different leaf shapes and colors. Different shaped leaves can make an attractive feature. Using broad leaves alongside narrow ones can be particularly effective. Mixing different colors also adds interest to the display. There are many different colors of sage which look attractive together or combined with other herbs.
How you are going to display your herbs. There are a number of options here such as herb wheels, spirals, in a rock garden or in a regular border or bed. You may also want to consider a traditional, formal herb garden plan, such as a cross, rhomboid or cruciform with roundel. Many gardeners choose to position their herb garden close to the kitchen for obvious reasons.
You can grow herbs based on your own personal taste preferences of course, such as those you like to cook with or those you like to put into your own salads and other meals. Another fun way to grow an herb garden though, is by creating themes.
You could for instance, create an Italian herb garden for use in your Italian based meals and sauces. An Italian herb garden could include basil, garlic, onions, sage, chervil, parsley, and other herbs which are commonly used in Italian meals. It is easy to create a herb garden plan using Italian herbs if you take into account the color, height and ground coverage of each different type.
Another excellent themed herb garden might not seem like an herb garden at first, but it is: a spicy herb garden, or a Mexican herb garden. This theme would include herbs which tend to be very spicy and hot such as green and red chili peppers such as cayenne, jalepeno peppers, horseradish root, cilantro, coriander, cumin, and any other spicy or hot herbs you can think of. This type of herb garden is also sometimes called a chili garden, because it’s often used for making soup and Texas-style chili. You may need to build this sort of herb garden indoors or under glass if you live in a cool climate.
Then there is the herbal tea garden theme, which is another very popular one to grow. An herbal tea garden grows a wide variety of herbs which are often used for making tea. You can grow standard tea itself, along with flavored varieties such as lemon grass or lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, chammomile, Echinacea, Angelica, Anise, catnip, red clover, lavendar, rosemary, thyme, and too many others to list in just one article. Generally, any herb can actually be used for tea, but not all of them will taste well as a tea of course. So select a few to start with, and experiment with different types of herb until you have created a perfect combination!.
One other type of herb garden you might want to try is a medicinal herb garden. Just about all herbs which are used for foods and teas have medicinal properties of some kind, and many are excellent for a wide variety of purposes. Garlic is a must grow herb for any medicinal herb garden, and you’ll love having Echinacea on hand for the cold and flu season too. Try your hand at a variety though, and again, just expand your themed herb gardens as desired.
[...] Herb gardening is becoming more and more popular every day, and for a good reason. Herbs have practical value, serve a purpose, and with herb gardening you can actually use your plants. When most people think of herb gardening they automatically think of cooking, but herbs are also grown for their pleasant aroma and their beauty. [...]