Bill Bampton's Top Ten Points for Herb Growing

As far as gardening goes, herbs are defined by the broad use of the term as “any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavouring, food, medicine, or perfume”.

We gardeners are not constrained by the strict botanical term that relates to non-woody plants that die down after flowering. A bay tree belongs in a herb garden but is not herbaceous. Herb gardens are defined by their usefulness.

So books about herb gardening always make good reading. They are more than garden books including recipes of everything from shampoo and cough syrup to soup. Herbs are interwoven with stories, myth even magic. Adages like “More in the garden grows, than the witch knows” and “Where Rosemary grows, the missus is master” spice the lore of the herb garden.

It is why the signage in our herb garden at Heronswood is double size, each reading like a small essay. Once you get into herbs, you easily get a passion for collecting more tales about your plants.

Herbs are the easiest entry into edible gardening. The herb garden is also often the minimum garden people have: the balcony pot of rosemary, thyme and sage. Even if most of your food is supermarket fare, adding your own fresh herbs brings vitality and homemade goodness. Here are my top ten tips for the would-be herb gardener.

1. If starting a garden from scratch don't be tempted to get every herb all at once. Believe me it is easy to get carried away. Look at what you use in cooking; invariably you will need a lot of quite a limited range of plants. We are all different. For me rosemary, thyme, bay, marjoram, a mint and parsley. In summer basil is a must.
2. Herbs like it tough. Many of the herbs we use come from Mediterranean regions where they thrive on skeletal soils. Lucky much of Australia provides the nutrient poor soils and hot dry climate herbs thrive on. The Heronswood herb garden is surrounded by eucalypts and watered by an at best sporadic sprinkler and drip system. Stressing many herbs actually intensifies flavour and oil content. A proviso being that soft annual herbs such as basil, coriander and parsley enjoy water and nutrient and can bolt to seed or become bitter if starved of either.
3. Mediterranean herbs evolved to respond to constant grazing. Herbs like to be cut; don't be afraid to prune and even brush cut. Be careful with some of the woodier herbs like lavender and rosemary not to cut too deep into old wood. A little sniping often is best. Prune lavender after flowering.
4. When designing with herbs, incorporate strong structural elements as a foil to the billowing and wild form of many herbs. At Heronswood we have used rosemary hedging and yew topiary but you could use a formal brick path or the traditional sundial. Don't be afraid of it looking too formal or ordered as herbs have a mind of their own and will soon soften any formality.
5. Don't limit yourself to culinary herbs. Dyer's plants, like woad, are worth trying for fabric craft or for the history buff — Braveheart face paint and Orris root for potpourri. The herb garden at Heronswood focuses on these non-culinary uses of herbs.
6. Grow you own herb teas, a world away from the commercial dried varieties of unknown origin and date of harvest found on supermarket shelves and in the back of pantries. Mountain Tea was used as cure-all by the ancient Greeks. This herb makes an attractive garden plant in its own right similar in form to lamb's ears. A favourite tea at Heronswood is lemon verbena.
7. Combine herbs in your ornamental garden. Many herbs are as ornamental as they are useful. Herbs make great hedging and edging — try rosemary, bay, lemon verbena, lavender, parsley, dianthus, thyme, bay lemon myrtle. For ground covers — consider thyme, golden marjoram, prostrate and dwarf rosemary, purple and golden sage. For cascading down a wall or terrace — no plant beats hanging rosemary.
8. Herbs are easy to propagate. They are a great entre into the world of plant propagation. The easiest to strike cuttings are rosemary and lavender. Thyme, mint, marjoram, chives and oregano divide readily. Growing from seed is the way to go for the annual herbs like basil and parsley. Take your time with parsley, it is notoriously slow to germinate so don't give up and don't let it dry out.
9. Use herbs as natural pest control in your garden. They can be used to mask, repel or kill pests. Strong smelling herbs like thyme that we use in our vegetable parterre can confuse insects distracting them from your prize vegies. Basil can repel flies. In the herb garden at Heronswood we grow our own insecticide in the form of the beautiful pyrethrum daisy. Simply dry the flowers and grind to make a dust or seep in warm soapy water for several hours.
10. Read Penny Woodward's Herbs for Australian Gardens: A practical guide to growing and using organic herbs. Like most gardening books, most herb books are written for another hemisphere. Penny's book gives clear practical advice on growing herbs that is most importantly based on her experience as an Australian gardener and not a Google search.

Further information:

http://www.herbsocietyvic.org.au/

http://www.pennywoodward.com.au/