What delightful photos, Eric! You and your helpers have done a beautiful job! I think what you choose to include is a very personal decision, but one thought that I have is not to underestimate how much space each plant will take up when settled in. (I usually make that mistake!)

For myself, I would add basil because I love to rub the leaves and take in the fragrance as well as to add it to tomatoes. Oregano too. 'Course it depends on what you like to eat. I haven't tried lemongrass but would like to. Have you considered a bay laurel? It could be stunning in the very centre or one of the corners.

Spearmint and peppermint both spread like crazy. I would suggest one or the other. Actually my favourite tea mint is Morrocan mint. And I love peppermint.

I like to include Good King Henry, a perennial whose young leaves can be cooked like spinach or added to salad. I love the idea of having a Good King in my garden. : )

Do you think you would have room for a rose in the potpourri bed? Perhaps one of the old species.

Planning herb gardens is such fun, isn't it?! Your's is really just lovely. I am also creating one now. It is quite different: informal, kidney-shaped, about 22'x12'. I have forked up the subsoil, mixed in a lot of seaweed, and have started bringing in topsoil. Maybe I'll upload a photo tomorrow. I just got my seeds from Richter's yesterday and am going to start some (indoors) tomorrow! Whoeee! I live in the southwest corner of Canada.

I hope you will send more photos when you have your garden planted and again in the summer!

April

Your garden beds are just beautiful. My only concern is that you may ultimately find them a bit small for so comprehensive a project. Some of the herbs you mention, such as echinacea, can take up a lot of space. Others are spreaders, such as the mints (as pointed out above) or can grow to be big specimens when happy, like the rosemary, which can get five feet tall. Confining them in containers,s sunk in the ground, will help to control things, at least for the first few years at least.

If it were me I would want to include summer savory, sweet marjoram, chervil, sweet basil, and tarragon as musts in the culinary section.

I think I would include phlomis fruticosa in the medicinal section (I am not sure what it's good for, but it sure is pretty) and chamomile in the tea section.

In the potpourri I agree that you would want a rose -- maybe gallica officinalis (that would be a standard herbal choice) or a miniature centifolia such as Petite de Hollande (not really very miniature but not huge). Perhaps it could grown separately, in a large container off to the side. Same with bay leaf (a culinary that is really a small tree). In fact I forsee that you may have to resort to this eventually, reserving your central, most formal beds for the most beautiful and emblematic of the herb types.

There is never enough space for the obsessed gardener!

Thanks for the advice everyone!
As for size and spreading, I plan to plant the mints and lemon balm in large bottomless flowerpots and to prune like a madman on the rosemary! I have heard that it is best to replant rosemary every few years, is that true?

My wife is an organic rose maniac, so I will have plenty of roses around without planting them in the garden.

The bay... well, I am giving it some thought.

Well, after waiting for a month for a paper catalog from an Ontario herb company, I just couldn't wait any longer and ordered from their website. They had collections that are pretty good, and I could just fill them out with some local seeds. And just yesterday, the seeds arrived! Looks like I will have to build a herb garden annex...

Culinary: Lemon Balm, Chervil, Chives, Dill, Marjoram, Oregano, Parsley, Sage, Savory, Sorrel, Sweet Basil and Thyme

Salad: Salad Burnet, Garlic Chives, Lovage, Watercress and Garden Sorrel

Tea: Anise-Hyssop, Lemon Balm, Chamomile, Menthol mint and Bergamot

Potpourri: Lemon Basil, Clove-Pink, Lavender, Mignonette and Rosemary

Medicinal: Echinacea, Skullcap, Calendula, Valerian

I also got some Vanilla grass, Wintergreen, and Bayberry.

I am so excited!

Eric in Japan

Sounds fantastic. I hope you will keep us posted.

My rosemary is quite large -- about three feet high. I have to bring it indoors every winter. It is several years old, and (touch wood) hope it will continue to do ok. I never heard you need to start it again, unless maybe it is because they get too large -- or die suddenly. I have found it intolerant of cultural neglect (drying out). We use ours a lot in pork dishes and for chicken cacciatore.

I am currently growing watercress in a container with an air pump under a light (results -- so so) and I am in the process of getting the rest of my fresh herb garden off the ground under lights indoors and outdoors as soon as it is warm enough.

I forgot to mention dill, which is an herb I like to cook with a lot, especially in summer, with fresh cucumbers and green bean salads. It is pretty worthless dried, but delicious fresh.

In the salad section, i personally include Spinach as well. Easy to grow, quick too. Plant several rows and you've got spinach throughout the summer. With all the stories in the news over the past several years about tainted spinach, I have been leery about buying it bagged from the grocery store. I have decided just to grow my own and it works out quite well.

Chamomile will spread a lot too, as will Oregano if you choose to grow it. I found that I didn't use Sage as much as I thought I would . . . and used Basil a lot more than i thought i would. Parsley too. If you have those two herbs, you can keep Pesto on hand all summer. So refreshing and perfect for hot weather!

With the echinacea, make sure you get the right plant. Lots of nurseries try to sell Echinacea as a herbal supplement, but they are selling the wrong cultivar. Echinacea Augustfolia is the medicinal one, I believe.

You may want to think about Catnip for tea. It is soothing and can be medicinal as well. Just don't go overboard with it :)