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Herbs for Beauty's Sake
Whoever decided that edible plants must be segregated from ornamentals and sequestered in the backyard must not have truly appreciated the many splendors of herbs. They are the most versatile group of plants in your garden. These amazingly functional plants attract beneficial insects, pollinators, and butterflies, have knockout foliage, stunning flowers, fabulous fragrance, and great texture. This season, get more out of your garden space by edging a flower border with a row of ruffled parsley, padding a shady footpath with Corsican mint, and tucking basil or chamomile into your containers. Once you start mixing herbs into the landscape, you'll discover they are just as appealing and useful, if not more so, as they are in the kitchen!
Annual Elegance
When planting herbs, you can choose from annuals and perennials, shrubs, groundcovers, and even a few trees and grasses. Start with annual herbs, which add variety to the mix of familiar flowers.
Basil's (Ocimum basilicum) broad, fragrant leaves and spikes of white or purple flowers quickly fill gaps in perennial and annual borders and complement the textures and colors of common container foliage plants, especially coleus, dusty miller, and ornamental sweet potato. 'Napoletano', with its huge, crinkly green leaves, is a classic culinary basil, but you can choose from an assortment of basils with different leaf sizes, textures, and colors.
'Red Rubin' basil has smooth, deep bronzy purple leaves, while 'Ararat' features unusual mottled purple and green leaves. 'Cardinal' has fantastic dark green foliage offset by striking red stems and a large topknot of deep reddish purple flowers. Line borders with curving rows of basil or cluster a few plants together to create a dramatic splash of colorful foliage in sunny flowerbeds (see page X for a great annual border plan). Mounding Basils-especially 'Piccolo Verde Fino' and 'Summerlong', dwarf varieties with teensy tiny leaves that mature into adorable 10 to 12 inch tall mounds-can be tucked in among rocks in the garden.
Perilla, also known as shiso (Perilla frutescens), is a basil cousin with deeply grooved, toothed purple or green leaves and it is a great, edible alternative to coleus. Used in Japan to flavor rice and sushi, this fast growing herb tolerates hot summer heat and grows in both sun and part shade. New varieties, including 'Magilla' and 'Gage's Shadow' don't have culinary value, but their dramatically variegated leaves more than make up for it. Korean shiso (P. frutescens var. crispa), which grows to 2 feet tall or more, is an especially handsome plant. Its large, roundish leaves are green on top and blushed with purple on the undersides and they pair up nicely with hostas, pulmonarias, and heucheras in partly shaded borders or under deciduous trees.
Dill's (Anethum graveloens) feathery foliage and abundant umbrella shaped flower heads mix well with perennial standbys, including Verbena bonariensis, Coreopsis, sweet William (Dianthus barbatus), cranesbill and catmint. The pretty, pale green plant is also an important food source for black swallowtail butterfly larvae. "I drop dill flowerheads among perennial and annual flowers when they mature in summer to give flowerbeds a naturalized look," says Organic Gardening's test garden manager Pam Ruch, who notes that the seedlings tend to pop out of the ground on their own schedule the following season. "Usually they sprout in late spring and again in late summer. The chartreuse flowers are a welcome sight whenever they appear."
Perennial Favorites
Blend a few choice perennial herbs into your ornamental borders, especially ones that feature vibrant flowers, and they will attract birds, bees, and passersby who won't be able to resist the delightful fragrance and touchable foliage.
Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) is a Mexican native with fuzzy, gray green pineapple scented leaves that prefers full or part sun and regular water. "We eat the leaves in salad all summer," says Kirk Brown, an Allentown, Pennsylvania gardener who takes particular delight in this exceptional landscape herb. "Then just as the garden is fading in October, pineapple sage comes into bloom with red, red flowers. It is the garden's last hurrah." Hummingbirds find the late-season blooms irresistible. The tender perennial's tops die back when temperatures sink to the mid 20s but the plants can resprout easily from the roots; just don't expect them to return after a hard freeze. In Zones 7 and higher, however, pineapple sage overwinters easily.
Anise hyssop's (Agastache foeniculum) spikes of purple flowers lure droves of bees and butterflies. Plant this 2 to 3 foot tall plant at the edge of beds so you have the opportunity to brush past its soft, grey-green leaves and their licorice scent. 'Golden Jubilee' features lime green foliage and pale purple flowers. It partners especially well with dark foliaged plants including cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), amaranth, and purple heucheras. While hardy to Zone 5 (and sometimes Zone 4), this short-lived perennial tends to last only three or four seasons.
'Berggarten' sage (Salvia officinalis) rarely flowers, but its silvery green foliage matures into a neat mound of oval leaves that are rarely touched by insects. "Space the mounds about 6 feet apart," Ruch recommends. "They create a nice transition between colorful blooming plants, and even become a focus point during the mid-season break when early perennials like irises, salvias, and catmints finish their first flush but the annuals have not yet achieved their full potential."
Shrub Love
When it comes to herbs, rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) is a garden star especially in the dry, warm regions of zones 7 to 11. In southern locations, rosemary grows into a stunning evergreen shrub. Plant prostrate types, such as 'Prostratus' and 'Lockwood de Forest', so they cascade over walls or sprawl along the ground. Use upright forms as medium height screens or background plants. They also work well in a border with other low water plants such as groundcover oreganos, lavender, golden yellow-flowered Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida), and red and yellow blanket flower (Gaillardia). The branches of upright rosemary tend to twist and turn. 'Tuscan Blue' reaches 5 to 6 feet tall and wide, and features blue flowers. 'Golden Rain' is an unusual upright variety with dark green needles edged in yellow.
In colder or wetter parts of the country, grow rosemary as a potted plant, says Indianapolis gardener and writer Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp. In her Zone 5 garden, she treats rosemary like a small, shrubby annual. Plants appear in the nurseries around May, just after the last frost date. "They're usually 6 or 7 inches tall," she says, "and I combine them with flowering Torenia, silvery leaved Helichrysum, or some other plant that can go a bit dry." If you want to attempt overwintering rosemary in a borderline zone, plant cold hardy 'Arp' in a south facing, sheltered location (ideally against a wall), and mulch the base with a 3-inch layer of shredded leaves in the fall. 'Arp' grows to about 4 feet tall and wide when planted in the garden and will often survive winter in Zone 6.
Gorgeous Groundcovers
Low growing, flowering herbs work great as a living mulch in borders and under shrubs and trees and they provide an important source of nectar for beneficial insects and pollinators.
German chamomile (Matricaria recutita) is a fast growing annual that sends up clouds of dainty, apple-scented flowers in early summer. It readily self sows and fills in natural spaces in the perennial border. Chamomile tends to brown during the heat of summer, and looks its best when the weather is cool.
Common thymes, including English thyme, silver thyme, mother of thyme, and citrusy lemon thyme are cold-hardy, vigorous herbs that produce billows of blooms in early summer. Upright thymes tend to be too tall to plant between steppingstones or pavers. Instead, use these 6 to 12 inch high, carefree subshrubs as low, semi-evergreen edgers in flower and shrub borders.
Oreganos work well in the landscape, says V.J. Billings, owner of the herb nursery Mountain Valley Growers in Squaw Valley, California, because they adapt to nearly any kind of soil. And gardeners in Zones 4 to 11 can choose from dozens of varieties, some of which are culinary and others that are not quite as tasty. In my experience, Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare hirtum) stands out in terms of flavor and adaptability in the landscape. It bears small whorls of tiny white flowers and its deep green, rounded leaves line soft horizontal stems that root where they touch the ground. For a colorful alternative, try creeping golden marjoram (Origanum vulgare 'Aureum'), which has chartreuse leaves. Both of these oreganos grow into a mat several feet across and form mounds about a foot tall. To keep mounds lower than a foot, trim them in spring.
Prettify Pathways
A few tough, low, creeping herbs hold up well to light foot traffic and thrive when planted between steppingstones and along pathways.
Roman chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) forms a dense, 3 to 4 inch tall carpet of highly fragrant, dark green foliage topped in summer by cute daisy-like white and yellow flowers. Overseed this perennial in sunny, low traffic areas of your lawn or tuck plants between pavers on patios and paths.
Mounding marjoram, sometimes sold as 'Betty Rollins' oregano makes a nice, tight mat of green leaves that release a minty fragrance when crushed. For a very low growing plant, Billings recommends creeping oregano (Origanum vulgare 'Humile'), which looks similar to Dichondra.
Creeping thymes, also aptly called carpet thymes, quickly fill in the space between pavers and soften their hard edges. Caraway thyme (Thymus herba-barona) is one of the few culinary creeping thymes, though it is a vigorous grower that can smother a paving stone in a short time. Billings prefers creeping thyme (Thymus praecox arcticus) especially 'Pink Chintz', or tiny elfin thyme (Thymus serpyllum 'Elfin' ). They tend to stay more dense and lower than other thymes, typically reaching only 2 or 3 inches tall.
Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) looks more like a moss than mint. Soft, touchable, and delightfully fragrant, plant Corsican mint where you walk barefoot. Unlike other mints, this creeper spreads slowly where it is perennial (Zones 7-9). In cooler climates--where it grows as an annual-- a single plant will spread to cover more than a square foot during the growing season.
These are just a few ideas for using herbs in your landscape. Once you get started, you can, with just a little imagination, transform your entire yard into an herb garden.
