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Knock Off the Old Knot Garden? NOT!

© Barbara M. Martin

Last week I wrote about informal herb garden design. If your idea of a "proper" herb garden is more formal, or if you lean toward a more symmetrical approach to design in general, you'll prefer this week's "recipe" for herb garden design. I suggest you use the time-tested and truly lovely knot garden concept as the BASIS for your design. The Museum of Garden History in London, by grace of the Tradescant Trust, brings us a fabulous example of a knot garden from Tudor Times! This is a replica of a seventeenth century knot garden, and it showcases plants from the era of the Tradescants -- kindred gardener souls from long ago.

Of course, you will need to adapt this motif to fit your own situation. For the sake of classic simplicity, I often suggest the four square design pattern, but any variation on the knot garden will do. It is infinitely adaptable to many, many shapes and forms. Here is a planting plan by The Cottage Garden. While for only half of a four square garden , I think it will show you the basic idea. (And it demonstrates the versatility of the concept!)

To put this in perspective, traditional herb garden design follows geometric lines and creates a strong visual statement by its structure alone. In a four-square garden, the paths and planting beds work together to form a pattern which is attractive through all seasons. The center provides a logical focal spot for a favorite ornament while the symmetrical regularity of the planting beds introduces a natural sense of balance and harmony to the design. A network of hedging and/or fencing may finish off the design.

In other words, the layout and architectural elements BECOME the design, the plants are mere ornaments.

Reducing the plants to mere incidental status is useful in an herb garden because a lot of the plants are -- well, weedy-looking.

Here is a photo from the lovely garden at the enchanting Egeskov Castle in Denmark, just to show you what I mean when I say herbs tend to be "higglety-looking plants." (And to explore the castle and the grounds further, here's The Map!)

Well, I've said it. It's true. Herbs are often ugly. They're disheveled and "higglety" plants. By that I mean they are often floppy. Most bloom for a short time and finish. They sprawl, they run and they go to seed. Most of them would be called weeds except that some clever person discovered they had special uses and thought they were worth growing in a centralized spot for the sake of convenience. Hence, the term herb "garden".

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