Ideas for herb bed?

5 years ago

Hi, I have a herb beds on out patio. I have some rosemary, thyme and oregano. But the thyme and rosemary have grown quite scruffy. Am I better off starting again with new plants for the rosemary and thyme?

What other plants would you suggest would look good there?

It needn't be restricted to herbs, though I quite like having culinary herbs in the garden.

PS - I also had a lavender, but it grew too large and took up a large space in the bed, and a sage plant that looked very scruffy for half the year.

The herb bed is the one on the left in the first photo. Excuse the mess in the garden, was just staring the spring clean when i took these photos!

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floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK

5 years ago

A few corrections to some of what you’ve been told. The Mediterranean herbs do not need feeding. There are no herbs you could plant which would repel insects just by growing. That’s a myth. Not that insects are a big issue in Cardiff anyway. And, finally, herbs can be both attractive and productive. You do not need to sacrifice appearance for practicality. In fact cutting for the kitchen doubles as the necessary pruning for shape. It doesn’t need to be ‘mutilation’.

As to using the herbs, I just chuck them in everything. I don’t cook for pleasure by any means but I do cook for flavour. Adding herbs doesn’t make cooking any more complicated. For example, I imagine you have a roast dinner sometimes? I’d put a bunch of rosemary inside a chicken or under a piece of Welsh (obviously!) lamb. For pork I’d throw a branch of sage under the joint. And surely spag Bol appears in any house with kids in it? Bay, thyme, oregano. Just throw them in everything. Even if you open a tin of soup you can stick a sprig of something into it.

I wouldn't put them in pots, personally, because pots are fiddlier to care for. (The exception would be mint, which spreads and maybe bay which wants to be a tree.) But I would perhaps add some spring bulbs to perk the bed up after Christmas. And maybe some edible flowered bedding plants like violas. And I’d grow all the perennials, like bronze fennel and chives, in that bed.

An afterthought. Looking at the brown bits on the rosemary, I wonder if there’s a tom cat around the place?

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Comments (7)

floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
5 years ago
You can cut the dead stuff out of the rosemary and prune back the gangly bits quite hard. Clip over the thyme with the shears. I’m wondering how much sun they get, especially the rosemary in the corner.
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Patricia Colwell Consulting
5 years ago
The herbs IMO serve a purpose and do not have to look perfect thyme and rosemary need to be clipped back to get nice herbs for use , sage often just depends on the type of sage you grow . herbs generally need lots of sun and regular feedings to do well.
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years ago
"and regular feedings to do well."

Skip the "regular feedings" :-) Mediterranean type herbs - rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender, etc. - just want a very lean but fast draining soil. They rarely ever require any sort of fertilization, which usually just serves to make growth lanky and overly rampant. And doesn't improve the flavor :-)
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
5 years ago
do you actually use the herbs??? .. if so .. then they are production plants .. and mutilated by use of the herbs ... so i wouldnt focus too much on them being pretty plants ...

an if you really dont use them as such.. then why bother.. use the space for pretty things ...

that said.. i have never had much luck.. in my gardens.. making any of the herbs become long lived .. and frankly.. they all got a bit too ugly for my aesthetic ... in other words ... i moved on ... but to be honest .... i didnt use them much for cooking ... i planted them too far from the house.. lol ... at least yours are right out the back door ...

tolerate them.. but if they irritate you.. start new.. and hang and dry the olds ones ... lifes too short to mess with things that piss you off ... that is what going to work is for.. lol .. not your garden ...

ken
decoenthusiaste
5 years ago
Looks like they're near the patio. Be sure to include insect repellent ones.

https://blog.gardenuity.com/13-natural-insect-repellent-herbs/
rapscalli
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you all.

floral_uk

The garden is SE facing, so the rosemary gets sun all morning, goes into shade in the afternoon. I gave the rosemary a god prune late last summer, will give it another good going over now.

Patricia Colwell Consulting

While I agree that hers dont need to look good, I do want this border looking good!

ken_adrian

Truth be told I haven't used them as much as I would like! I used to be a keen cook, but since having kids, the past couple of years food preparation has become much more functional rather than something I would take time and pride with...

Now the kids are past the toddler stage, I hope that I can return to cooking for pleasure, but time will tell....

PS, very good point regarding not having things around that annoy you!

decoenthusiaste

I have chives and fennel growing in pots and grow parsley and basil through the summer months. I planned to use the bed for the larger herb plants, but I could put some chives there.

Given the suggestions - and Ken's point regarding having a garden that does not annoy - I am contemplating moving the herbs into large pots that can be hidden over the winter and rotated around the garden and planting this bed for aesthetics rather than function.