Home » Gardening Information » Kitchen Gardening

japanese-inspired gardens

Colors, Scents, Contours, and Contrasts: Designing an Herb Garden

Informal Plantings

Most gardeners do not have the time, inclination, or pocketbook needed to maintain formal gardens with or without a knot design. An informal arrangement, one that includes broad curving class="border"rs, free-form beds, or narrow beds lining walkways or outbuildings, is often a more realistic approach. Informal plantings are also an excellent way to link a wooded area to the remainder of your garden, or to take advantage of space around trees, which can shelter shade-tolerant herbs under their boughs. To help decide on the design of your informal planting, use a long garden hose to outline various potential shapes.

If the informal planting is backed by a fence or wall and therefore faces towards one side, group the herbs according to height: low or creeping (under one foot), mid-size (one to three feet), and tall (over three feet). Plant the tallest towards the back and the shortest towards the front of the beds. Assemble plants in odd-numbered clumps of three, five, or seven specimens rather than in straight lines. Use taller herbs, especially those with a beautiful or architectural form, as accents, to break up groupings of lower-growing herbs and to lift the eye. Tall ornamentals can fulfill the same function. In long class="border"rs, repeat plants that have strong flower or foliage color to unify the garden. If you like a riot of color, be sure to use enough of each strong color to make a statement. Tie the planting together with low class="border"ring herbs; in no time their soft growth will spill over the edges, enhancing the feeling of curving shapes. Informal plantings are especially effective for large raised beds, wall gardens, or sloping ground.

In free-standing beds, focal points should be located off-center to encourage viewing from different vantage points. Consider incorporating some type of water feature in the garden. The sound of water is soothing and restful, and as a bonus, water attracts wildlife.

Like many gardeners, you may opt for a combination of formal and informal designs. You can have the feel of a formal garden by dividing the space into smaller areas outlined by simple class="border"rs, while at the same time arranging the herbs informally within the beds.

An Informal Bed Design & Plant List
An informal bed makes a beautiful herb garden. Featuring a rose bush as an off-center focus, this full-sun garden works best if it is raised at least eight inches above the ground. When starting from scratch, use a garden hose to outline a pleasing shape. (The plan below is for a garden roughly 16 feet wide.)

An Informal Bed Design

Design Illustration: Steve Buchanan