Most of my herbs, oragano, spearmint, garlic, Catmint, sage, beebalm french taragon, a couple differnet basils, are all in the same bed and get the same of everything, they are doing great. My horseradish and comfrey get watered with the lawn 3 times a week...

I've only been herb gardening for a month now, in containers on my balcony. I'm by no means an expert but I'll share with you my experience and impressions.

I'm not surprised to hear that mint grows well where you live around wet areas. Everything I've read here indicates such. Also, until this week, I had been growing eight different herbs all together in a self-watering container. The two mints (catnip and spearmint) grew gigantic, as well as the parsley (loves, loves, loves water). My Meditteranean herbs (oregano, rosemary, French tarragon, and sage) did all right, but I wouldn't say they really took off...except for the thyme (it also grew gigantic, although I wouldn't have expected it to knowing what I now know).

I know there are other herbs besides the ones I mentioned that love water (e.g. good luck growing the Asian lemon grass in hot, dry, conditions; this is supposed to be a really 'thirsty' one).

Hope this helps, but I'm keep in mind I'm a newbie. :-)

Herbs are like people - they're all individuals, each with its own individual requirements. It's impossible to generalise when there are so many of them - around 20000.

You can try to lump them into categories - Mediterranean herbs, tropical herbs, cold-climate herbs, mountain herbs, water herbs, desert herbs - and still you'll find differences within the categories.

One outstanding example of such a difference occurs in the so-called Mediterranean herbs. (There are other differences, but this one is striking). Now, if you generalise, you'll say that Mediterranean herbs prefer poor soil. However, basil is one of the Mediterranean herbs, and it likes a rich soil, frequently replenished with nutrients. Also, most of the other Mediterranean herbs are perennials, whereas basil is an annual.

With just this single example, how can anyone assume that all herbs can be treated in the same way?

Of course I don't treat them all the same. That's a recipe for failure! You need to do some homework for each and every plant you try to grow, to recreate as far as possible the plant's preferred natural habitat and environment.

You can, of course, get away with treating similar plants in similar ways. Near enough is often good enough in practise.

But you'll never get a waterlily to grow in the dry sands of the Sahara!