Growing Herbs
Sun lovers
Sun loving herbs have adapted to their native habitats, the windswept sunny plains and hills.
These herbs thrive in limey, even salty soils, and shrug droughts without a care. They have spiky or fuzzy leaves to help them preserve water and need a lot of sunshine to bloom.
Rosemary and sage, thyme and lavender, curry and tarragon, hyssop and chives, chamomile and yarrow, are great choices for a sunny herb garden.
Though low maintenance, they appreciate the occasional helping of fertilizer and need good soil drainage and lots of air movement.
Damp conditions make them susceptible to fungi, mold and rot.
These slow growing herbs are well behaved and long lived, and once they adjust to their spot in the garden, they dislike having their roots disturbed.
Speaking of roots, most of them are happy to root in water: just take a soft cutting, put it in a glass of water in a sunny window, change the water daily and you’ll have a new plant in a couple of weeks.
Shade Lovers
The words shade loving are misleading, because broad-leaved herbs are not true shade plants. Mint, lemon balm, basil, lovage, parsley, dill, fennel, comfrey, borage, and ginger won’t bloom and thrive if they don’t get at least a few hours of morning sun.
They are sappy plants with poor tolerance for heat and drought; they wilt easily and need plenty of moisture to thrive. Other than that, they’ll take all the sunshine they can get if it’s not during the scorching afternoon hours.
A spot with moist soil in light or dappled shade will have them performing at their best.
Herbs like mint, lemon balm, and dill spread out of control when they find favorable conditions. Plant them in containers on the patio or in buried pots in the garden to contain their sprawl.
Shade loving herbs bloom more and intensify their scent during dry summers, to the detriment of their leaves’ tenderness and flavor.
Rainy summers prompt them into wild growth, but also make them prone to black spot and fungus.
All the Pretty Flowers
Some aromatic herbs, like yarrow, chamomile, calendula, lavender, catmint, borage, angelica, and hyssop, have such pretty flowers they successfully crossed over to the flower border.
I left my favorite for last. Culinary sage is gorgeous, with purple-blue flowers that stay in bloom for over two months.
Biennials
Biennial herbs, like parsley, dill, fennel, celery and watercress, devote their first year to developing their clumps and root systems and the second year to the production of flowers and seeds.
Their second year tall umbels look great at the back of the border, where they add focal points and texture.
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