Design A Herb Garden; The Basics

You will love the world of herbs, and congratulations for embarking on endless hours of diversion from the stresses of modern living, by deciding to build and to maintain a collection of beautiful and useful plants.

The basic design principles should be considered for herb gardens as with any other sort of garden. In general put larger plants to the rear of the garden and shorter ones to the front. Consider bloom time and color so that the colors blend rather than clash. Finally consider the texture of the plants and ensure that you have a good variety of plants to make an interesting garden.

You do not have to be a professional landscape artist to create a wonderful herb garden design, but some careful thought of what you wish to achieve, and due reflection on tips and guides from people with experience in this field, will go a long way to add to your future satisfaction with the collection and arrangement you build over time.

Options In Herb Garden Design

There are trade-offs in herb garden design in terms of ornamental effects and utilities. Professional herbalists will obviously be concerned with optimal production of herbs, which they need for their vocations, but for the pure nature lover, aesthetics has pride of place over any crass commercial considerations. Every individual has the right to determine what exactly a special collection of plants should achieve, and this should find a prominent place in herb garden design from the very outset.

It is always a good idea to visit established plant collections in an area before starting out on herb garden design for the first time. Exotic plants may not just stagnate or even decay in new surroundings, but may introduce new pests as well. This also applies to new varieties of indigenous plants.

A tea garden could include Lemon balm and mints would be part of these gardens along with anise hyssop and perhaps lavender, these are the herbs used in your favorite teas.

A kitchen herb garden will focus on the basic culinary herbs such as parsley, rosemary, and thyme. An attractive garden can be made by edging the area with a low growing thyme or curly parsley and placing uprights such as rosemary and tarragon behind these plants.

The Italian herb garden, there is a wide variety of both basil and oreganos to choose from. This could also be a pizza herb garden that would include a round garden shaped from green basils, with purple basils to represent the pepperoni and a few oregano plants to represent other flavors such as onion or meats.

Traditions And Constraints In Herb Garden Design

Growing herbs in a designated herb garden is not a requirement, but it can be useful to have all your herbs in one place so that you can harvest them easily. Whether you choose to have them all together or not, herbs should be a pleasure to grow and enjoy, so go ahead a try some – you will be glad you did.

Constraints of space may also dictate departures from classic herb garden design. Some of us are fortunate to live in mansions that are of palatial dimensions, leaving plenty of room for generous herb garden as a part of the landscape. However, those of us who prefer the convenience of a built-up and densely populated urban area must be innovative in squeezing a large collection of biodiversity in to a relatively tiny area. Herb garden design principles can be used to compromise with available space, to the extent possible in such circumstances.

Though we still use plants as food, for seasoning, and for fragrance, there was a time when most medicines and dyes also belonged to the vegetable world. Therefore, homes in medieval and earlier times had plant collections out of sheer necessity, giving herb garden design a classical touch that dominates much thinking on the matter even today. However, those with an eye for the modern should not be bound by the herb garden design ideas of our ancestors, and should give their imaginations full flight in creating new and enchanting ensembles

Free Herb Articles: