Herb Garden Designs
Let me start out by saying that there’re a whole lot of ideas and opinions about how you ought to design your herb garden. There are also a whole lot of books written with examples of herb garden designs. If you’ve read those, this isn’t going to be anything new.
There are two main ways to do this. You can let your herbs grow free and wild, which is what folks call an informal herb garden. And then there’s keeping your herbs manicured and fitted just right, which those same folks call a formal herb garden.
It’s not that I don’t like formal gardens, because I do, but I like formal gardens when someone else is doing the upkeep. These are the ones you see in the fancy magazines like Architectural Digest and such. They are well-groomed and sometimes have raised beds and wide gravel paths. If you’re thinking about doing a formal garden, consider planning it on paper before you do anything.
Here are some examples of formal herb gardens:
• Knot gardens: These are pretty fancy herb gardens. They are usually made by drawing out a large square on the ground and then planting your rows of herbs close together to form the different strands of the knot. These look best when each strand is a different colored herb plant. This also helps them to stand out. Good plants for knot gardens include sage and artemisia. In the first year, you’ll want to keep them short so that they’ll bunch up. You do not want a knot garden with a bunch of holes in it. In the spaces between the strands you may want to do some nice green mondo grass. Some people also make a gravel pathway around the knot garden.
• Wheel gardens: A wheel garden is a lot less formal than a knot garden, but it’s still considered a formal herb garden. It kind of looks like a pizza with each slice a different type of herb. You’ll want to use contrasting colors for your slices so that they really show out. Some people separate the slices with rocks, bricks or pavers. Some people put a birdfeeder at the center of the wheel, while others build their wheel garden around a tree (which is what I did). Either way works well. I’ve even seen some gardeners put several different plants in each slice, using different heights and colors. It can sometimes look good, but a lot of them that I’ve seen like that look messy to me.
• Parterre gardens: Most of the parterre gardens I know of are four squares inside another square with a gravel walkway around each smaller square. Confused yet? They aren’t especially hard to do, but they look very fancy. You’ll probably want to invest in some metal edging if you decide to go this route. The general idea is that all fours boxes are supposed to mirror each other (or at least two mirror the other two). They usually have a tight, bunched up border inside each box with some spread out, bigger plants inside that border.
Informal gardens are great for newbies to herb gardening and also for people who want a low-maintenance, go with the flow garden. There are also some nice designs for the more experienced.
A couple examples of informal gardens include:
• Borders: You probably already understand the concept of a border, but for those who don’t, you plant a bed of herbs along your driveway, fence or sidewalk. If it’s against your fence, you plant the tall ones in the back and the little ones in the front—be sure to read up because sometimes they might start out as little ones and end up being the tallest in the bunch.
• Raised beds: By building your herb garden up in a mound, you can give your plants better soil and better drainage than if you just put them in the ground. This is especially good when you have poor soil (like the clay soil I have). If you do have bad soil, you’ll want to make your raised bed at least 6 inches tall.
Whether you like your herb garden casual or dressed up I hope you find a design that will work for you.
Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your garden grows.
