Morningsun Herb Farm

 

The herb garden doesn’t have to be a green sea of plants set back in the corner of your garden, functional because it will help make your food and beverages delicious, and maybe heal an illness, but too boring or ugly to be an area where  you want to linger and relax.  Herbs can be fabulous additions to your perennial garden, your relaxation garden, your meditation garden, your sacred garden, your patio garden or just to be inviting as you walk up the path to your front door.

 

Why choose herbs to add fragrance to your garden?  So many people go to smell flowers in the garden, but flowers come and go throughout the year.  Certainly, when lilacs or wisteria bloom the fragrance is incredible, but when they are finished in the spring it’s an entire year before you can enjoy them again.  With herbs, it is often the foliage that is fragrant, lasting for many months in the garden and inviting the gardener to touch and brush up against the plant, creating an  interactive garden experience.  Add to that the ability to harvest the plant and make delicious food and drink from it, or create lovely crafts, and you have a plant for all of your senses!

 

Many of the fragrant herbs are attractive to us, but not so much to deer and rabbits, so they can be useful in gardens where we are constantly battling with other critters.  Insects tend to steer clear of fragrant foliage, so often there is little need to spray chemicals.  And often these plants are moderately to very drought tolerant, and smell their finest when the nights are hot and the plants are very dry.

 

Some of the most delightful herbs to add to your scented garden are the ‘plain jane’ scented geraniums.  Scented geraniums are in the genus Pelargonium, and while they lack the exciting flower colors of many of the better known geraniums they more than make it up in the delightful fragrances emitted by their leaves.  There are more than 100 fragrances, including rose, apple, strawberry, lemon, lime, orange, nutmeg, apricot, peppermint and ginger.  Most of them are incredibly easy to grow in California, preferring part to full sun and dry conditions.  Often the leaves are dried and included in pot pourri blends because they hold their fragrance so well when they are dried.  The rose and fruit scented varieties are often used to make teas and desserts, and often the foliage is interesting as well, making them great inclusions for fresh bouquets.  Maybe you don’t have roses in your garden blooming, but include a few sprigs of rose scented geraniums and you will be rewarded with the same scent! 

 

Salvia is a very large genus with many great culinary and ornamental members.   One of the most fragrant sages is Salvia clevelandii, a California native sage that has a clean fragrance and intense blue flowers in the spring.  Another California native is Salvia apiana, white sage.  Thick leathery white leaves can be downright sticky with fragrance.  Salvia melissodora, grape scented sage, has leaves that have a pungent fragrance, and the purple blooms in fall, winter and spring smell and taste like grapes!  Almost everyone knows the citrus fragrance of Salvia elegans , pineapple sage.  Big green leaves smell like a cross of pineapple and citrus, with edible red flowers for both humans and hummingbirds.  Salvia dorisiana, fruit scented sage, is an excellent choice for a shadier garden, with giant fruity bubblegum scented leaves and  big pink flowers.

 

Lavender  is an obvious choice in the scented garden.  There are 26 species of lavender, and it is possible to plant varieties that will give you fragrance and color almost all year.  Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’ is a  classic landscaping lavender  that can be used for crafting.  Lavandula ‘Abrialli’ is an attractive specimen with a deeper violet bloom that makes a very sweet essential oil.  The English lavenders L. angustifolia, ‘Hidcote’, ‘Twickel Purple’ and ‘Royal Velvet’ have the clean sweet fragrance of true lavender.  Many lavenders, such as Lavandula heterophylla, are strongly fragrant and will bloom about 9 months out of the year.  The foliage of Lavandula pinnata  is lemony fresh, with unusual purple blooms.  Lavander is great to plant where you will brush up against them often, because even when they are not in bloom the foliage will be intensely scented.

 

For fragrant paths nothing can beat thyme.  Many thymes can be walked on and will release their fragrance, especially Thymus herba barona, caraway thyme, or the lemon scented’ Doone Valley’ thyme.  Slightly taller thymes such as ‘lime’ or ‘orange’ are excellent at the edges of paths, while the taller shrubby lemon and silver thyme can be tucked between other perennials.

 

Curry plant, Helichrysum italicum, is deliciously scented like curry!  It is quite a surprise to touch the shrubby gray plant with small yellow flowers and find the smell of curry in your hands.  This is a plant to grow in full hot sun with little care needed.  The full size curry plant, which grows to 2 feet, and the dwarf version, which grows to 10 inches, make excellent container plants and topiary standards.

 

No fragrant garden is complete without lemon verbena, Aloysia triphylla.  The leaves on this large growing (6 feet) deciduous perennial smell more like lemons than the fruit, and its flavor matches its fragrance.  This plant needs to be planted close by the patio or deck, so the leaves can be plucked off easily and added to your ice tea or water (or martini).  A staple of the tea garden, the leaves can be dried and used for cooking and pot pourri.

 

Santolina, commonly called lavender cotton, is a short shrubby perennial often grown alongside lavender, because of its similar growing conditions and habit.  The small yellow flowers complement the purple of the lavender, and the fragrance is pungent. 

 

Lemon balm, Melissa officinalis, is another delightful plant to grow in the perennial garden, although it can easily become a weed if you let it go to seed.  Instead, enjoy the grassy lemon fragrance and occasionally cut it back to the ground.  Lemon grass, Cymbopogon citratus, is another fabulous addition to the fragrance garden, which has the additional benefit of being a mosquito repellent plant.  Also, dogs love the flavor of lemon grass so be sure to plant one in an area where they can munch on it without getting into trouble for trampling the garden!

 

Butterfly bush (Buddleia sp), is often overlooked as a fragrant plant, instead only being considered for its use in attracting butterflies and hummingbirds.  The flowers have the fragrance of warm honey, making it a terrific addition to the garden.  It is also a great cutting flower.  Some varieties, such as ‘Harlequin’, have variegated foliage, adding to the interest.  Buddleia ‘Peacock’ is a new variety that is a dwarf, growing only to 4 feet.  It has been selected to have very large fragrant pink blooms, beautiful  in large containers or as a short hedge.  On the other end of the size spectrum is Buddleia alternifolia, or weeping butterfly bush.  Growing to 12 feet tall, this species blooms heavily in spring, completely covered in long sweet smelling blooms.

 

The genus Agastache includes many fragrant species that have beautiful edible flowers as well.  Try Agastache mexicana, ‘Sangria’or lemon scented hyssop, for lemon scented leaves and big pink lemon scented flowers that both you and the hummingbirds will have to fight over!  Agastache ‘Summer Breeze’ is similar, but with anise scented foliage and flowers.

 

Mint is an aggressive plant, but as a container plant can be moved around so you can enjoy the delicious uplifting scent of peppermint or spearmint.  There are many other fragrances as well, including orange, pineapple, Corsican (with a crème de menthe scent), banana, and apple.  Just be sure to keep it in a pot unless you want a lawn of mint!

 

Roman chamomile, or Chamaemelum nobilis, is a fragrant shade loving groundcover that smells like apples when stepped on.  Small white flowers are used for tea.

 

Other herbs to consider for scent:

Rosmarinus officinalis – Rosemary

Galium odoratum – sweet woodruff, vanilla scented

Foeniculum vulgare – fennel

Monarda didyma – Bee balm, citrus scented

Tagetes lucida – sweet mace, licorice scented

Nepeta sp. – catmint, pungent scented

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