Pots of Herbs!
Herb planters are an ideal way to grow your herbs
even if you have a large garden and also in addition to an established herb bed.
The beauty of herbs in pots is that you can have them to hand right outside the door ready to use in your cooking.
This is especially useful for herbs which are in frequent use such as parsley, chives and thyme,
and also a good way to plant up the more tender herbs such as basil
so that they can be sheltered in the spring against chilly weather, and again in the autumn to prolong their life.
In hot summer weather it is good to know that most herbs originate from mediterranean climes
and so are very happy in hot and dry conditions with very little water needed once established.
Herbs planted in containers and pots need far less frequent watering than pots
with bedding plants such as petunias and begonias.
It may sound a obvious thing to say but it is important to choose herbs for your containers
that you actually like to use!
Herb containers look much better, and also the plants grow more healthily,
if they are constantly picked and used, rather than being allowed to get overgrown and tall.
It is important to use a large deep pot with adequate drainage,
some large stones or broken up pieces of polystyrene packaging in the bottom of the pot are ideal.
Use a coarse, well draining compost, with the addition of some slow release fertiliser if you have some,
as this will mean that you only need to water but not feed at all until next spring.
One herb which we would recommend that you do not include is mint,
as it will grow very vigorously and will swamp all the other herbs within weeks!
Mint in containers works well, but they need to be kept separate from the other herbs.
The herbs can be planted quite close together, a circular container of 30 - 35cm diameter will easily hold 5 or 6 herbs.
Rosemary or sage is nice in the centre to give some height, use the coloured sages,
purple or gold, in containers as they do not get so large as the common green variety.
Coloured versions of the culinary herbs are good to use as they make for very ornamental plantings
as well as being useful in the kitchen. Some ideas for a splash of colour in your planting mixture are:
- Gold or gold curly marjoram - bright gold foliage
- Oregano Country Cream - cream / green leaves and pale pink flowers.
- Rosemary pink flowered - pink flowers in spring and bright green leaves
- Sorrel Silver Shield - small heartshaped silver leaves that taste of lemon.
- Thyme Silver Posie - common thyme flavour with silver variegated foliage.
- Thyme lemon variegated - lemon scented, bright gold and green leaves
This is to name just a few, which can be mixed with the common culinary herbs such as parsley,
tarragon, chives etc. All of which are in constant use in our kitchen!
If you are having trouble deciding, or would like to send some herbs to a friend as a gift to plant up in a container,
have a look at the special collections on our website.
For a colour co-ordinated effect you can buy special collections with a gold or purple / silver theme.
One of the popular collections is our salad collection.
Lots of herbs add zing and flavour to salads, the six herbs in our salad collection
will spice up your salads and give lots of different flavours and textures to go with the essential 'lettuce,
cucumber and tomato'.
If you would like to make up your own salad collection, some of the herbs that can be included in a salad pot are:
- Chives or garlic chives
- Variegated landcress
- Welsh Onion
- Basil
- Oregano Hot and Spicy
- Salad burnet
- Rocket
- Parsley
- Sorrel Silver Shield
These leaves either whole, or torn into bite sized pieces, really liven up a salad and turn it into something special.
As well as their culinary uses, herbs in containers near the house can be very ornamental even throughout the winter months.
- The thymes, Foxley, lemon variegated and Silver Posie especially, have stunning variegations that become more intense as the weather becomes colder. Planted in containers or baskets with little violas and dwarf daffodils you can be sure of a colourful display round until the spring.
- The coloured sages - purple and gold variegated - are hardy enough to included in winter containers, as are Curry plant, Golden marjoram, Oregano Country Cream and the ever popular rosemary.
- Our herb gift packs ordered in the autumn will contain hardy herbs at this time of year, all suitable for planting up in containers for the autumn, winter and spring displays.