Looking for herb garden layout ideas?
If you’re planning a herb garden, there are many ways to add herbs to the landscape. You can have a stand-alone herb garden, a herb lawn, herbs mixed with paving, use herbs as bedding plants, weave them into a perennial border, or make a herb container garden on a patio, deck, or paved space.
In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about ideas for using herbs in home garden landscapes and share their favourite perennial herbs, annual herbs, and exotic herbs.
Check out the article about planning a kitchen garden at FoodGardenLife.com.
And say hi—we love to hear what you think! www.foodgardenlife.com
So my daughter Emma came home one year with 19 types of mint and I thought oh no like this is going to take over the whole garden so we agreed on a mint container garden and it looked really nice because some were variegated with white and green some were yellow and
Green and we had all these different potted mints you’re listening to the food Garden life show the show that helps you grow food whether it’s on a balcony in a backyard or bigger I’m your host Steven bigs and I’m your host Donna Bowser together we talk with gardening experts
And we talk about what we’ve done in our years in the Horticultural trade helping you bend the rules and grow food in a way that suits you and your growing zone welcome to season 7 episode 12 today we’re talking all about herbs and Donna I think to start out with I have
To admit I have killed many a rosemary plant over the winter and I know one year my daughter Emma took a picture of me with my dead rosemary plants plural and put it out on social media and but you know that’s I guess that’s my little
Lead into to our chat about herbs that I grow a lot of herbs I love herbs Rosemary some years are good some years aren’t uh I thought I’d get that on the table right now so that it doesn’t come back to haunt me what about you well I’ve never really grown Rosemary
Successfully until I moved to the coast and then I couldn’t do anything wrong it just grew outside and it was growing in my I set up a herb area a free herb area for Neighbors because I I couldn’t get Mint one day when I was trying to make a
Mint and watermelon salad because the grocery store had run out because I don’t know wrong time of year so after that I planted mint out about 10 kinds and I also planted Rosemary in an area on my Boulevard that I never watered after that Rosemary thrived and so did
The mint I do have to say I’m the Rosemary is all good now that I have a cool Greenhouse it’s happy it’s the hot dry conditions in a centrally heated house that are a little bit less than perfect so that’s true we should probably just talk about you know what
Is a herb so I know for me when I think of herbs I think of things that we use small amounts of to flavor cooking and of course then there’s the whole medicinal aspect too some people use herbs for medicinal purposes for me herbs are all about cooking and when you
Think about herbs what do you think about like you I use it as both a cooking plant something that I can flavor with or I use it medically and I did use it medically I don’t know if you want to hear about that my granddaughter talked me into making a potion for our
Hands we had to buy Lin and almond oil it must have been $100 worth of ingredients special bottles it do went on and on and on I had to make calandula seeped in this special alcohol so of course I had to use vodka I mean these
Things take a long time it was the worst hand lotion you can ever imagine it was just terrible I got right out of the business of making a $100 a bottle hand cream it was just ridiculous so I stick to cooking with herbs I stick to salads
I stick to easy things so we’re on the same page there the other thing might be worth saying with herbs is that they can be cold hearty plants or they can be tropical plants we could be talking about annuals perennials or Woody things like that Rosemary so if if
People are talking about herb care and how to care for herbs it really depends on that individual plant so I don’t think today we’ll get into individual care for these individual herbs but um I think I’d like to talk about how as home gardeners we can use herbs and and for
Me I like the idea of herbs as bedding plants a lot of the time people think about herbs they’ll buy one herb one potted herb one basil one parsley but but what if you had a whole bed or a whole corner of a bed with basil or
Maybe you had a half of a bed with purple basil half with green or what if you edged all of your beds with parsley so I think it’s easy to overlook herbs as bedding plants as well so that’s one thing in the edible landscape well first
Of all Steve that’s just stupid you know honestly if you use basil and it is basil if use that as an edging plant and you’re in a cold climate and you have an early Frost your whole thing’s dead you got to use some party yeah I did see in in Quebec City
They had used the ruffled the night the triple curl parsley as an edging for a band and that sort of give that formal look if people are looking for formal but I wouldn’t use um a flaky little plant like basil that’s something you would just baby and just take care of
Not use as a big landscape feature well or maybe you need to move to Toronto where it’s a little bit warmer okay so so bedding plants but the other thing you could do in in a home Garden setting is what about a herb lawn
So my friend Ken has a th lawn I’ve seen camel Lawns and if you think about a know it’s this low growing tough as Nails plant and so I think a her blond could be a really fun feature in a home landscape setting how about you have you ever had a her
Blond look I use about a tablespoon out of time of time I’m not going to have a whole lawn of it because what I found even if you use something super hearty like junipers there’s always one dandelion that comes up in the middle or one quack grass or something that ruin
Ruins the symmetry of that beautiful lawn so I’m not into maintenance I don’t want to do a lot of extra maintenance so I don’t want a lawn made of that if I’m going to have a lawn it’s something helpful husband can mle then I don’t even have to think about it if it’s
Something I’m looking after I want some and I wouldn’t make a lawn out of herbs for sure so I haven’t sold you on the bedding plants with herbs I haven’t sold you on the lawn what about think about herbs as an edging so in in a previous
House I took out my whole driveway and I made this big garden with a pathway through it and what I did is I edged this pathway with lavender it was like a mini hedge of lavender all along this flagstone pathway and I had I had visions of it before I planted it
Because we’d just been to provance and I’d seen the Lavender Fields it was really nice and then I know one year my Dad decided to Edge one of his Gardens with thyme which is also like lavender it’s more wood so you can have this semi-woody plant right next to your
Pathway and he had silver time which was um a white and green variegated one alternating with the solid green one and it looked kind of cool so how do you like that kind of idea I like it except I you know Lavender is not Hardy in a
Lot of areas anywhere like bam before you go up to you know the Northwest Territories or even any of the mountain regions even Calgary where I live it’s it’s flaky like you’ll get one year and you think that’s it I’ve nailed it next year it’ll die so I don’t like to commit
Such a big space to something that’s a going to be expensive they can be $15 $20 a plant and then B it might only live one year so I treat it if you are treating it as a bedding plant yes fine but uh doesn’t you know for me my best
Use for herbs is in big pots with groups of herbs or in individual pots on my window sill I’m not a landscape with herbs they might be an occasional addition if I’m trying to push the hardiness or like I said when I lived on the coast I used lavender regularly on
The coast because you could cut it back and it would bloom again it was just so gorgeous but in the central northern areas I don’t think I would use that actually I would stick to using them in pots because it’s a bit warmer in the pot worst case scenario you can move
That whole pot right up to your step or just a few in your vegetable garden as a sort of a feature in the garden I wouldn’t mind buying one lavender and putting it in the center of a pagerie for instance but I wouldn’t buy so we
Agree on the pots because I’ve also used terracotta pots to punctuate my garden with these terracotta pots and they add height and it raises up that herb it looks really nice and the benefit is if you’re drying the herb when it’s raised up in a pot you don’t get soil splashing
Onto the underside of the leaves so well I have another use for them though for herbs because of reading Susan’s bets Susan bets house plant herbs which I loved it was a great little book and it made me think of a new thing why don’t I
Have chives and pots in the house it would give you some food later into the fall you know you go to reach for a recipe and you need always an irritating one tablespoon or something so putting them in the house as house plants is another option and I don’t think that’s
Something that we’ve talked about yet so pots house plants maybe a little the other but mostly keep it simple with herbs I I really use them as an accent rather than a feature well uh so I did have one other idea in the home Gardener edible landscape and I’m not sure if you’ll
Think of this as an accent or a feature but as you know from having seen my Gardens I love flagstone so I’m forever making flagstone patios wherever I live and in in one Garden I had penny Royal Mint that began to self seed between the flagstones and it would come up every
Year in that same spot and started to come up between all the flagstones and it was great because we could pick a little bit but also as you walked on the patio you’d get the smell of the penny Royal Mint and it was really nice and I
I have seen people do the same sort of thing with some of the low growing times so what do you think about weaving in some low growing herbs into what whatever Paving you have what I think is maintenance Steve I’m not a I’m not um you know I am getting older just get
Older than you I don’t want to just build in maintenance and I have never seen a flagstone pathway with plants growing between it that didn’t have dandelion or other renal weeds I’m just saying keep those time to where you need them couple of pots couple of plants I’m
Not putting them all throughout you know I it’s done I’m not saying it’s not done but it’s done by people who have professional gardeners or who are fine working endlessly on trimming and clipping and I do love the smell I love it when other people do it but it’s just
A little bit too much work for me okay well I can tell I won’t be visiting your yard for the big displays of herbs but um but I know you do love growing herbs and I wonder if we should talk a little bit about how to get her herbs which
Ones do we grow from seed which ones should we buy and I know there are some like Rosemary there are many different types of Rosemary there’s some that’s uh drapes down there’s some that’s more upright and so it’s something that typically you would buy as a plant and
If you have your eye on a certain variety you really have to buy it as a plant because they’re propagated by cuttings and I think the same goes too for some of the special times I know there’s proval time that Dave at Sage Gardens in Manitoba says is just
Phenomenal same with the oregano he says you got to get the crean oregano so those are some that I I would say you’d buy a plant but I sure grow a lot of stuff from seed too top of the list always is basil not basil well at least I hope you’re
Growing the good basil the Downey M do free because a lot of people are still confused by that I was can split it into two groups things they do from cuting and things they do from seed so if you can’t find it for seed if you don’t have
A friend that has a woody plant you can take and cutting from then you may have to buy plants but with a little time plant $5.95 just the common mother of time that’s a lot of money for one plant you could buy a whole package of seeds for
That same plant for 395 and I just did this this winter because guess what my daughter wants to do a Time lawn and her friend yard so we we shared a package I just want a couple of plants she wants a whole lawn and why not you know why not
It’s so much cheaper but when I start things from from seed it’s a completely different season a completely different program than when I start things from cuting and it’s only the Woody plants and you sent me a whole bag remember that time you sent me a whole bag 300
Cuting of muit lime do you remember yes big box arrives it’s like all these branches I’m taking cuting from it I found it a bit tricky to grow I dipped them immediately I cut them into little bite-sized pieces because they didn’t want big clippings I put them into
Little maybe 6 in 15 cm pieces dipped them in the rooting hormone put them into soil probably 10 or 20 cuting at each little pot of soil wrapped it with plastic to keep the humidity 100% put it over heat watered it of course and I did get about 10% of
Them so I had about 30 plants and the 30 plants are amazing they are large I saw some in some of people’s houses recently people are using them as a house plant just to repeat this is called sometimes the thae line or the mcro line line the
Old yeah yeah people don’t like that word though I’ve been harassed for saying that word so I call it other things but it’s all the same what you do is you just use a single leaf when you’re making rice it gives the flavor the essence of Thai food right there in
That line so I use it for that just a single leaf at a time but I also use bay leaf the same way I take all my cuting of bay leaf sometimes it can take almost a year to root but it’s such a gorgeous plant to have as a hose plant unless
You’re in a really mild climate and the third one was Rosemary so those are the three Woodies that I do as cuting everything else is seed except for as you mentioned the occasional rare plant that we have to buy and pay that little extra for don’t be buying those common
Things like mother of time seeds are cheap seeds are cheap or a lot of them you things like time like a reg know if your family or friends have some you can divide the clump as well coming up talking about some favorite herbs both Exotics and annuals
As well as more thoughts about adding herbs into a landscape that’s coming up in just a moment A shout out today to everybody joining us for fig camp this week having lots of fun talking about how to grow figs in cold climates and we have people with us from some cold climate gardening areas Pennsylvania New York Ontario Alberta and more this is our live online Camp
It’s once a year but we are running an evening session this year too we’re trying out an evening session in April so if you missed out this time around we have one coming up and you can find out more about fig camp at foodgarden life.com some new content at foodgarden
Life.com we have a new article about how to grow raspberries and home gardens also a recent article about growing edible flowers that’s at Food Garden glife.com [Applause] you’re listening to the food Garden life show the show that helps you grow food whether it’s on a balcony in a backyard or bigger and now back to our chat about using herbs in home Gardens so I was thinking of a couple of my favorite Tropicals a couple of my
Favorite annuals and then some of my favorite perennials and I mean we can’t cover all the herbs today but I think that’s a fun way to go about it so for the I don’t know if Tropicals is the right word let’s say Exotics things that aren’t winter hardy for me here in
Toronto and I do love that Rosemary even though I’ve killed many it does well now in my coold Greenhouse over the winter bay leaf is always on the list and it’s another one does well cool cool cool over the winter for me although in years before I had a greenhouse it survived as
A house plant but a new herb for me is something that’s also an exotic fruit crop is lemons because lemon leaves like the Thai lime leaves are filled with delicious flavors and so you can use lemon leaves in place of bay leaves if you’re making soup stock or sometimes
I’ll wrap a lemon Leaf around a kebab or halumi cheese and Grill it on the barbecue so those are some favorite Exotics what about you well I already named my favorite exotic which was the Tha lime and the bay leaf and I never can get enough and
Because you’re only using a single leaf at a time your plant can support that you’re not running a commercial kitchen I’m not running a commercial kitchen so one plant of each is plenty um so I spend most of my energy with uh with herbs growing things from
Seed and one thing I was on uh CBC Radio once and talking about cilantro and how difficult it was to grow because you no sooner buy it from the store you put it in the ground it goes to seed and I was complaining about this to the host and
She was like oh that’s interesting a farmer heard me email CBC who then emailed me and she had a variety called calypso cilantro which I have tried since then and it’s true you can seed it you put it out it can last most I got so worried actually that I thought it would
Never come to seed and how was I going to collect more seeds so it’s one of the varieties that I just love so I do a lot from seed and I used to grow the cilantro that was called you know slow bolt cilantro which I get at all the CD
Saturdays and it would bolt in about a week so honestly the Calypso cilantro has been a savior for me I do like the cilantro seed pods most people don’t use those I had a little conversation with the chef once and he said if you pick the green seed pods before they turn
Brown on the cilantro you can crush them with a mortar and pestle use them with something like salmon it gives an amazing cilantro flavor even after your plants have gone to seeds so I kind of like that so I do quite a few things from seed I am also growing a lot of
Basil and growing that in my pots I try to focus on the shorter varieties the stockier ones because there’s several that have been listed now yeah that are Downy mildo resistant and I stay away from the ones that are not like I’m not growing the Italian gen how do you even
Say that gen gen genovesi yeah I cannot say that Italian word so the the basil and the cilantro that you’re talking about those are annuals and I think I’ve got a couple that I’ll add to our list of annuals and a favorite for me is Dill
I love Dill my mom’s family was Eastern European so I mean Dill in everything the into the Beet borch into the mushrooms and sour cream that you put on toast I mean Dill is just one of those essential things and sorry what’s your secret for growing
Dill I’ve had a lot of trouble with growing Dill oh well Dill is a self seeder so the secret is to always let it go to seed and then sprinkle that seed All Over the Garden so I have not bought Dill seed in a couple decades because it
Always just self seeds and I will help the process a little bit when it’s it’s formed seed I’ll just sprinkle it everywhere but this works really nicely because I get some come up in the spring and I’m harvesting Dill using Dill it makes seed sprinkle that everywhere and
Then I get a nice flush of Dill usually late summer as as well and then I’ll freeze a bunch for the winter so D the secret is self-seeding but they sell the plants and they sell the seeds what’s a new Gardener going to do that has no
Plant and no seed oh well buy one plant let it go to seed and then you’re in Dill for the rest of your life so okay I like it I like it that’s so it’s an annual and then the other one is a borage and I don’t know if I should
Throw it in as a herb or an edible flour but anyway I people often think of borage as a herb and it is a self Ceder too so if you don’t know borage it’s actually a commercial oil seed I think they grow some in southern Manitoba is a specialty
Crop they crush the seed for borage oil but it’s got this edible flower that is a shade of blue that you won’t find anywhere else in the garden so it’s really fun the flowers taste a little bit like cucumber is how I describe it and uh it’s this plant that can get kind
Of big uh kind of rangy it’s rangy but it self seeds comes up here and there in my garden and wherever I decide I want it I’ll leave some so I’d say borage and Dill or two annual herbs that I love to have I like it and my Dill is one of my
Husband’s favorites so I just need to try a little bit harder and I think I’ll do what you do I’ll buy one as a plant this year I’ve been buying seeds and it’s a tricky one and I’ve had that question a lot well what do you do with
Do so I have seen it reced all over the place so that’s what I’m going to do this year that’s a great tip it works well and if you need seeds Don I’ll send you some okay okay so you know I think one area of herbs that can be overlooked
Is these herbs that are perennials and sometimes they get mixed into perennial beds and people don’t even think of them as herbs and so for hom gardeners especially if you’re trying to make an edible landscape and and mix together different things so that your space is both function
Food producing but nice looking I think these are fun so top of my list is bergamont or bbom because both the leaves and the flowers when you dry them you can make tea and I mean it’s a beautiful perennial so it’s up there bronze fennel has been a real
Showstopper in my garden and it’s this very tall plant it’s great for attracting lots of pollinators so I love it um I think we touched on chides earlier there’s no reason you can’t put them at the front of a a perennial bed we talked about the lavender the oregano
Now one I wanted to touch on is mint because a lot of people are scared of mint because it is such an aggressive plant and I don’t usually put mint in the ground but I’d like to say that if you’re dealing with deep shade mint might actually be the answer to your
Problems because it’ll grow in deep shade without completely taking over otherwise mint is something I’d think of as a container plant so my daughter Emma came home one year with 19 types of mint and I thought oh no like this is going to take over the whole garden so we
Agreed on a mint container garden and it looked really nice because some were variegated with white and green some were yellow and green and we had all these different potted mints and and so that worked well I have to say that’s why I put mint along my Boulevard right it’s abused out
Of the way area I would tried seven Mints not as ambitious as Amo obviously but I did a row of mint and I made it available to the neighborhood but after about 3 years it died out the whole patch because it won’t tolerate a super
Hot dry area forever so mint is a bit tricky and a bit controversial and even when people do put it in pots it sometimes grows under the pots I planted it in fabric pots once it came through the fabric pots and into the ground next
So it’s pretty tough but I want to get back to bronze fennel I was giving away the seeds at a CED Saturday and I was hand slapped because it’s considered a noxious weed in some areas of British Columbia now so I’m sure it’s considered noxious in other areas it’s just so darn
Productive and so beautiful it’s one of those ornamentals that people share with friends who share with friends who share with friends and then it recedes so check your own local area before you grow bronze fennel or any of the fennels because they’re pretty aggressive okay and and you know
That that whole idea of something being a noxious weed or an invasive plant the thing maybe to mention is that it really does depend where you are so what’s a weed in one area might not be in another area if the conditions are different so that’s right check your your local
Recommendations that’s it’s all online your provincial noxious weed list will show you and and and it’s only noxious in certain areas but we haven’t talked about bu any else well parsley is on my list and I think partially it’s I’ve seen show beds where they jux deposed impatience with parsley and it looked
Amazing so I think it’s way underused the triple curled parsley is how I’ve I’ve seen that used as an edging but I had a friend that was quite particular she just moved from England and she said to me oh aren’t you growing the Italian parsley as if it was a
Better type now just to set the record straight both of them taste the same one is a selection and it’s curled and it’s kind of interesting ornamentally the other one is quite a bit taller maybe up to 2 feet so the Italian parsley is quite a bit taller the flavor what would
You say Steve I’d say the flavor is about the same I’d never Noti difference yeah it just depends on how much space you have if you have a big space that Italian parsley is beautiful and it’s lovely on plates it’s lovely as a herb it’s lovely in tabouli salads but
They’re both good and I don’t Ru one out over the other I think they’re both good it just depends on your space and what you like to grow well or or grow them both because I’m a big fan of getting different textures into a garden back to
The Aesthetics and so if you have the Italian and the curly leafed parsley there there you have two very different textures just want to warn people it’s not always going to come Bloom sometimes it’s just a really long lived annual so it’s late October you’re in a cold
Garden and you’re saying oh my parsley is still alive it might be gone in the spring might not bloom and it might be gone but the good news is that gives you that long season of parsley because it’s very Frost hearty occasionally I do see it come back even in Calgary it comes
Back as a banal it blooms the second year re seeds like crazy and you find little plants all over your garden that you can pot up and give to to friends but don’t count on it if you’re in a cold Garden okay I wanted to I maybe get
Towards wrapping up with something that I just won’t grow I hate lemon bomb I just I can’t stand lemon bomb I think because I was invaded by lemon bomb when a neighbor grew it and uh when it comes to lemony smelling things I’d much rather have a lemon geranium or lemon grass or
Even lemon verbina I think lemon bomb to me is not as nice not as subtle so yeah I I Won’t Grow that how about you anything that you that is something we agree on I Won’t Grow that either I find it I had it you know receding everywhere also
Spreading by Roots also showing up in all my pots and once you’ve had it you don’t want it again I think it’s worse than mint at least mint you recognize it you can take action with lemon ball so sneaky both from seeds and from plants
So I’m with you on that that’s one thing we can agree on for sure okay well but maybe we can do closing thoughts and I’ll start with mine is that for those of you who’ve listened to this and you’re still scratching your head thinking okay where can I fit some herbs
Into my landscape I’ll just tell you what a fun little herb garden I had one year is there’s steps to my back deck and I have had a garden with scented geraniums on there scented geraniums are a neat herb and there’s different ones like cinnamon and lemon and lime and
Apple and so I had a little potted herb garden that was all scented geranium themed on the steps so that’s my closing thought how about you Donna oh gosh I would just suggest that people grow what they eat because this is the thing you’re going to open up a catalog with
Two or 300 varieties of her herbs and all of a sudden you’re going to be ordering this and that and the other thing but if you only eat really limited Foods just grow those grow what you love so I always grow chives always thyme always Sage basil and cilantro those and
Parsley those six are my as well as my woody plants that we discussed earlier those are my go to annual SL perennial that I have every year and if they don’t come back I’ll start a few more from seed or buy a few more because you know what you cook everyone Cooks slightly
Different and they need slightly different foods but once you’ve had your own chive plant you can use the flowers you can use the leaves you can go out in a moment’s notice and pick what you need you’ll just never go back to having to buy that those little plastic packages
Of five you know leaves of chives you got a big plant there and as you said it works beautifully into a landscape so figure out what you need what what you want and then grow that okay well that was fun talking about herbs Donna thank you we’ll see you next
Week and I will be sending some dill seed your way thank you all right we’d love it if you drop by to say hi online at foodgarden life.com we have articles about growing fruit veg using your homegrown produce also about growing figs and lemons in cold climate
So say hi tell us the topics that would help you grow more of your own while you’re at foodgarden life.com also grab our free newsletter subscribers get the subscriber only cold climate fig guide and small space food gardening Tip Sheet you can head over to my website and grab
My really cool printable PDF for a seed packet you can personalize it for each type of seeds that you save donnab baller.com have a look you’re listening to the food Garden life show I’m Steven bigs and I’m Donna baller here to help you [Applause] Girl N N