healing gardens
The first time I saw an herb garden I thought it weird. Why would one want to waste so much space in the sunshine to grow plants that for the most part don’t bloom. I guess my budding gardening instincts weren’t very sophisticated.
I grew up with a garden, and a very well kept one at that, grace to my grandfather’s horticultural talent, knowledge and decades of experience, but even so, one grew herbs wherever there was space left over, where it wasn’t convenient to grow something else, surely they weren’t a feature planting.
So I was walking through that perennial herb garden, first trying to find any flowers and then trying to see if I could recognize any of the residents. I couldn’t then, not more than a few kitchen herbs. Some I recognized by name, but have never seen, some I recognized by scent, and some I’m still unfamiliar with.
What I didn’t know then was that an herb garden is not meant to appeal to the eye, though, as you can see, herbs really do bloom. An herb garden is a garden of scents, and sounds, the buzzing of the bees, the fluttering of wings, it is to be enjoyed by touching fuzzy stems and feeling the coolness of the bruised mint and bee balm leaves on a hot afternoon.
Now, many years later, I have my own patch of herbs and I’m so enchanted with the waves of lavender, the umbels of yarrow and the sunny smiles of calendulas that I can’t bring myself to harvest more than a few stems at a time. I guess enjoying it by sight does happen after all.
Sadly you can’t get the country gal out of the garden design, I still tucked my lovage on the edge of the hosta bed. It is what it is.
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