Think Basil or Sage plants are the only garden herbs? Think again!
Are you an herb lover? If so, you’re not the only one. Many visitors to the beautiful wildlife garden love herbs just as much as people do. And although most people think of Basil, Thyme, Parsley or Sage when you ask them about herbs to grow, those are just a tiny portion of what’s really an herb in the garden. Herbs can be thought about in culinary, medicinal, spiritual, or botanical terms. Botanically, “herb” refers to any herbaceous plant, i.e. a plant that dies down to the ground each winter and does not have a woody stem. Most flowering annuals and perennials would be considered “herbs” in this context, but shrubs would not, even though they lose their leaves each year.
These “herbs” growing in a wildflower garden provide food for insects and birds, not humans.
Medicinal herbs take many forms and although they’re not the subject of this post, are very interesting to learn about. Culinary herbs, such as parsley, sage, thyme, basil and oregano can be grown not just for humans, but for your wildlife visitors as well. While we as humans love to use these herbs in our cooking, butterflies depend on them to help them grow from one stage to the next. Bees and other pollinators love them for their pollen, and can be seen in great numbers on the flowers of thyme, oregano, and chives.
These volunteer herb seedlings of Lavender and Lemon Balm find a happy home in between flagstones, with only sand and decomposed Pine droppings to live in.
Most flowering herbs are very carefree and need little extra attention. Given too much fertilizer or water they lose their intense aromas and are more susceptible to diseases and pest problems. Left to their own devices they grow happily along side other flowers, shrubs and trees. Many common culinary and botanical herbs are easily grown from seed, either started indoors or sown outside. And there are so many to choose from!
Some of my culinary herbs I will be planting this year.
These beautiful flowering “herbs” will be gracing my gardens and treating my wildlife friends.
By now most of you have received at least one seed catalog to drool over, so why not think about how you can add some herbs into your gardens this year? Culinary or otherwise, herbs have so many benefits to you and your wildlife friends.
Kathy Green is a Garden Coach and Designer who is patiently waiting to start her seeds for the blooms and herb she will be planting in her gardens in the mountains she calls home in Colorado.
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About Kathy Green
Great article Kathy! I get hungry just thinking about the herbal bounty! I didn’t realize that too much water or fertilizer would lessen the aroma. Something to think about! Thanks!
Loret recently posted..Butterfly of Winter
Hi Loret, the water and fertilizer requirements of each herb are different, with some large leafed ones like Basil requiring more water so they don’t wilt. And of course if you if grow your herbs in containers the game changes all together, with both water and fertilizer requirements going up. The leaf aroma is a trade off with larger plants I guess! There are many books on growing herbs out there – I have several myself, so the best thing is to do a bit of research on the herbs you’re interested in. Some herbs, like those in the mint family, are very vigorous growers and are best contained in pots so their roots don’t wander into areas you don’t want them to be.
Kathy Green recently posted..What Gardening for Nature Teaches Me
Good post Kathy..herbs definitely belong in every wildllife garden,for the reasons you said but many of them are also good pest repellants with their pungent foliage. Always a good thing! I’ve been studying the seed catalogs this year and hope to grow some new ones, as you said, most of us are familiar with the most common ones but they are really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the herbs used over the centuries for medicinal and other uses…