The herb garden is often a separate space in the garden, devoted to growing a specific group of plants known as herbs. These gardens may be informal patches of plants, or they may be carefully designed, even to the point of arranging and clipping the plants to form specific patterns, as in a knot garden.
Herb gardens may be purely functional or they may include a blend of functional and ornamental plants. The herbs are usually used to flavour food in cooking, though they may also be used in other ways, such as discouraging pests, providing pleasant scents, or serving medicinal purposes (such as a physic garden), among others.
A kitchen garden can be created by planting different herbs in pots or containers, with the added benefit of mobility. Although not all herbs thrive in pots or containers, some herbs do better than others. Mint is an example of a herb that is advisable to keep in a container or it will take over the whole garden.
Some popular culinary herbs in temperate climates are to a large extent still the same as in the medieval period.
Herbs often have multiple uses. For example, mint may be used for cooking, tea, and pest control. Examples of herbs and their uses (not intended to be complete):
- Annual culinary herbs: basil, dill, summer savory
- Perennial culinary herbs: mint, rosemary, thyme, tarragon
- Herbs used for potpourri: lavender, lemon verbena
- Herbs used for tea: mint, lemon verbena, chamomile, bergamot, hibiscus
- Herbs used for other purposes: stevia for sweetening, feverfew for pest control in the garden.
Read more about this topic: Herb Gardens
Famous quotes containing the words herb and/or garden:
“By night we lingered on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o’er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 4:16.