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Herb Gardening

Herb gardening is a vital and important part of perennial gardening. Herbs are after all, plants that gardeners have found a use for - medicinal, cosmetic or culinary or ornamental.

It is the ornamental and culinary aspect that we want to focus on in these web pages. Some of the best plants in the perennial garden are also considered herbs and their stories are found on the links below.

While this is not a site about herbs, it is a site about perennials and herb gardening is a very important part of the perennial border.

Basic Rules for Growing Perennial Herbs

In general, there are a few things you need to know:

1) Grow these plants in full sun.

2) Grow all perennial herbs in poor soil without fertilizers. Poor soil concentrates the essential oils because the plant is not lush and tender with water that dilutes the oil content. Obtaining good quality essential oil is the objective whether you eat the plant or use it in some other way).

3) Annual herbs can be well-watered although it is best to water only enough to keep them alive.

4) Harvest in the morning if possible because the essential oils are at their peak in the morning.

Plant Lists

Echinacea or coneflower is one of the best known of the ornamental herbs and here's how to grow it.

Lavender is a classic herb gardening plant  and is one of the best of the fragrant herbs we grow in our perennial gardens. It is one of my favourite plants.

Nepeta or Catnip is one of my favorite ornamental herbs.

Questions and Answers

Folks, I do my best to answer as many questions as I can every week (I get hundreds) but there's (sadly) no way I can get to them all. I do my best and if you fill out the form, I'll do my best but I can't make promises.

Ask a Perennial Herb Gardening Question

If you have a question about perennial herbs, then feel free to ask it using this form.

If you have a picture of the problem or situation, feel free to upload it here as well (keep the pic under 100K please for faster uploading)

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What Other Visitors Have Asked about Perennial Herbs

Click below to see questions from other visitors to this page...

ornamental herbs  Can ornamental herbs be used as culinary herbs?

Doug says that an herb is an herb. And they all can serve multiple uses in a garden - ornamental as ...