Designing An Herb Garden That’s Right For You
Designing an herb garden can be an exciting project if thought through appropriately. Herb garden designs can be structured to your individual style or specific needs, some may choose to develop a formal or informal garden the choice is yours.
Although the size of your gardens design can be as large as you like, keep in mind that there is not a lot of space required to develop your herb garden. When considering a design for your garden you can choose to design a formal or informal herb garden. Most informal herb gardens are designed in rectangular, square, circle shapes, and some just have a mind of their own, growing ramped wherever or however they like.
Before you begin to design your herb garden it is important to keep in mind for what and how the herbs will be used. For example, If you have a culinary or kitchen garden it should be in an area where it can receive anywhere from four to six hours of sunlight and should be placed near the home so that you can quickly and easily access your herbs at will.
When designing an informal garden a lot less planning and strategizing is involved verses designing a formal herb garden. When designing your informal herb garden, to make it easier for you, you may choose to group plants together by plant type (annuals biennials, and perennials), you may also choose to group plants together that require the same amount of water, soil, sunlight or shade. Furthermore, you may choose to organize your garden by culinary herbs, medicinal, or aromatic herbs. Some people choose to design according to flowers, specific colors, foliage (height, colors and varieties), plant size, etc. It is totally up to the designer’s individual preference. Remember, since this is an informal garden you can place and group things as organized or chaotic as you like as long as you understand it that’s what will matter.
Should you elect to go with a more formal design then more planning will be involved. The more popular formal herb garden designs are typically shaped in knots, some layered in spirals. The goal of this type of garden is to have patterns with a focal point.
When mapping out a design for this type of garden you will need to think about the shape(s), the focal point, groupings and what herbs will go where and color groupings. If you are considering a larger garden design you may want to consider having brickwork; if this is the case, what herbs will you grow along that path and what will its height be.
These are some important things that will need to be thought out when considering a formal herb garden.
Be creative when designing your garden this is the beauty and excitement of having one. Have fun with your designing, use an array of plant sizes and textures, use contrasting colors, have fun with choosing accessories and focal points for your garden. An important note to remember is to have no inhibitions, let your creative self surface and design that herb garden that you never imagined.
Happy Designing!
Janet Suzalski
