Dill is a good herb in the kitchen (pickles or potatoes anyone?) but it is not such a good ornamental herb garden plant. It gets tall and weedy looking so I grow mine in the vegetable garden. Fennel will provide a similar textural effect in your herb garden and it behaves better. The bronze fennel can add an especially decorative look.
Sage is often grown in the herb garden but unless you make your own sausage or use an awful lot of sage-seasoned stuffing at Thanksgiving you may have a hard time finding ways to use it. The saving grace is that it makes lovely flower spikes in the spring and adds some structure to the garden during the winter. (It is a sub-shrub!) There are also some very attractive varieties grown especially for ornamental effect. Tri-colored sage and Berggarten sage are two nice selections you may run across at the nursery.
If I remember right, the first herbs I grew were parsley and chives, and I've grown more herbs every year since. I hope this will encourage you to give herbs a try in your garden.
ENJOY!
Herbs for the Home Garden: Just the Facts includes a description, culture, harvesting and use for each herb I mentioned here.
Herbs in Depth: Concise but Thorough includes everything from mythology to companion planting to herbal uses and garden notes for each herb I mentioned here.
Quick and Dirty Herbal Cheat Sheet will bring you up to speed fast so you can sound like a pro!
*(If you are at the "enlarging" stage for your herb garden, you might enjoy my four May 1997 articles on herbs.)
ENJOY!
I relaunched my topic under the new name of The Cottage Garden. But don't worry - the Eco-Gardens articles are archived right along with all the articles from The Cottage Garden.
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