Herb garden design images

Beautiful Herb Garden Designs

Fresh ways to make your herb garden both functional and super-stylish

Written by Mike Irvine October 25, 2016

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&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p class=”dek margin-24-tb padded-mobile”&gt; Fresh ways to make your herb garden both functional and super-stylish &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;

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1 of 10 Linda Lamb Peters

A world of color

Take advantage of the fact that not all herbs are green and leafy. Local nurseries have varieties in a wide array of colors, textures, and heights, as well as those that flower and bring bees into the garden. Here is a prime example of an explosion of color and varying heights: tall pineapple sage with red trumpet flowers and chartreuse leaves; the mid-sized flowering basils—African blue and Mountain magic—with spires of purple flowers; and a low-growing blue-green German thyme spilling over a rocky border. A feast for your eyes and also your nose!

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2 of 10 Linda Lamb Peters

Summer, contained

Of course, it wouldn’t be summer without a bushel of sweet basil growing in your garden. But the cluster of vibrant-flavored herbs shown here is just as perfect for the season. Some, like mint and cilantro, are familiar, while others—shiso, lemongrass, and Thai basil—are more exotic. But they all can be used to add bold Asian flavor to a variety of dishes. And thanks to their variety of heights, textures, and shades of green, they make for a winning combination in the garden, too.

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3 of 10 Linda Lamb Peters

Think both in and outside the box

Don’t feel restricted to growing herbs in traditional in-ground or raised beds. Most herbs, including annual green basils, will grow happily in wooden crates, willow baskets, small pots, and other containers. All they need is good drainage, regular water, and at least 6 hours of sun. From thyme and sage to oregano and marjoram, there’s really no excuse not to spruce up your stoop, windowsill, or balcony with a favorite culinary herb.

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4 of 10 Linda Lamb Peters

A busy gardener’s saving grace

Perennial herbs are a great solution to any difficult spaces or sections in a landscape—they fill in nicely, overlap and play well with their companions, and don’t need much attention from the home gardener. If they start to get unwieldy or wild, a few quick cuts down to new points of growth will rein them in and leave you with a pretty harvest of herbs to hang and dry. What’s more, mild temperatures in areas such as coastal California allow for continuous harvests of tri-color sage, golden oregano, French thyme, and rosemary through the winter months.

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5 of 10 Thomas J. Story

Herb wall

There’s no need to limit your herb selection to traditional low-lying mounds of thyme and oregano. Experiment with taller, more dramatic selections that will stun you with quick and vigorous growth. Here, the limey leaves of pineapple sage intermingle with licorice-tasting anise hyssop in full bloom—a solid wall of aromatic herbs that delight the senses and attract the busiest of hummingbirds.

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6 of 10 Thomas J. Story

Bee magnets

A mix of three types of flowering basils grows at the base of each trellis. ‘African Blue’, ‘Magic Mountain’, and ‘Wild Magic’, are all grown specifically for their flowers, which, unlike traditional types, aren’t a sign of being at the end of their season. (All varieties of basil available by mail order from Morningsun Herb Farm.) The basils bloom all season and die come frost. They’re still edible (though more astringent than traditional Italian types) and ridiculously loved by the bees.

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7 of 10 Thomas J. Story

Herbal essences

(All herbs available by mail order from Morningsun Herb Farm.) Herbs make fantastic border plants. Seen here: white-flowering lavender ‘Hidcote’, orange-flowered Agastache ‘Sunset’, intensely purple-flowered A. ‘Blue Boa’, lighter purple-flowered A. ‘Blue Fortune’, the green and yellow variegated leaves of ‘Variegated Berggarten’ sage, the chartreuse leaves of pineapple sage, and the green leaves of Thymbra spicata, spilling from the bed onto the path.

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8 of 10 Thomas J. Story

Spilling is ok here

The simplest way to soften a straight edge: Plant a spilling herb. Along the sides of each of our Test Garden’s raised beds, Homestead Design Collective planted herbs that do just that. Not only do herb blossoms look beautiful and attract pollinators and beneficial insects, but they’re also edible. Most herb blossoms, including the French thyme seen here, taste milder than their leafy companions and are great additions to salads, soups, and egg dishes.

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9 of 10 Thomas J. Story

Follow your nose

Your herb garden should not only look beautiful, but should fulfill your other senses as well. Just imagine the rush of aromas that would result in brushing past this bed of flowering herbs—a mild licorice and minty scent from both the flowering purple spires of anise hyssop and the cheery apricot blossoms of the agastache, a sweet perfume from the white lavender, and a hint of Mediterranean spice from the low-lying purple blossoms of the culinary herb za’atar. A garden should be a source of inspiration, and who wouldn’t want to run back into the house with a bouquet of these fragrant herbs to use in the kitchen?

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10 of 10 Stefanie Bittner

A perfect pairing

Never be afraid to mix your herbs with your vegetables. Here two chile de arbol peppers, bearing fruit that are fiery in both their bright fire-engine red color and their smoky flavor, are surrounded by a border of herbs, including blossoming thyme, marjoram, and wild magic basil. The herbs are allowed to spill over the bed’s rocky border, while they’re pruned and harvested away from the peppers–giving them necessary breathing room and space to grow. Meanwhile, the herbs also bring pollinators and beneficial insects to the garden–visitors that are essential to the health and production of all vegetables!

Popular Herb Garden Design Ideas for Small Spaces

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”

Herb garden design is perhaps, one of the most delightful activities for the gardener.

Whether you have room for only a container or are blessed with room for raised garden beds, your culinary herbs will delight the senses and give your love for design full expression.

The most successful small herb garden designs combine your favorite herbs and flowers in pretty combinations.

This photo is an example of a great small herb garden design that is very easy to achieve. Individual pots of herbs and flowers are grouped together in baskets.

The baskets are very effective in providing a cohesive look.

The baskets are also portable which is an important design element for a small area since they can be moved when you need to re-purpose the same space.

This pretty design is also very flexible, allowing you to bring individual herb pots indoors while cooking or switch out different flowers and herbs depending on the season.

Container Herb Garden Design

Urban homes often have very limited space for gardening. That’s one of the reasons that container herb garden design is thriving in cities.

Any apartment with a window that supplies plenty of light, or a balcony that has a sunny spot, can support a container garden.

Those containers can be just about anything you want them to be, as long as there are drainage holes in the container.

Without drainage holes, water will be retained for too long, causing root rot for your herbs.

Use unique containers to provide color and interest in the herb garden.

The design of your container garden will, of course, be based on the type of container you use. Just remember that water runs downhill, so if you tier your gardens allow for controlled runoff. Where will the water go, and what will it take with it?

For example, the beautiful strawberry pots are popular with herb gardeners, but, how do you water them? The pockets that circle the pot are hard to water, often overflowing and uprooting the herb in the small space it occupies.

The key, here, is to use a piece of 2″ PVC pipe in the center of the planter.

Drill holes all around the pipe, for the full length of it, and leave the center clear.
Pack dirt around it in the pot.
When you water, pour water into the pipe, and it will seep into the soil, watering the plants from the inside out.

This type of design helps with watering plants in tall containers of any type.

Design your container garden with an eye for diversity. A basket or pot can support 3 or 4 different herbs, and supply plenty of each for most of your cooking needs. Make sure you select herbs with similar light and water needs.

Small Herb Garden Design in the Outdoor Garden

Those with limited space outside may be interested in small herb garden design. You don’t need a lot of space for a great garden – all you need is plenty of sun. Most herbs thrive only in full sunlight, although there are some that can handle shade.

Some of the prettiest and most bountiful herb gardens are grown in the limited alley space behind a suburban fence. Planting against a fence helps to keep the soil warm since sunlight reflects light and warmth back onto the garden.

When designing your small herb garden, consider access. If you have access to the plants from all sides, design the tallest plants to be in the middle.

If you design your small herb garden with access in mind, you won’t have to reach around taller plants to reach smaller ones.

If you are planting your herbs against a fence, plant the taller plants against the fence for the same reason.

This not only creates a pretty layering of plants, but it also keeps you from breaking larger plants as you tend to the smaller ones.

Growing along a fence also protects the plants from wind, if that’s a problem in your area.

If you have limited space for your herb garden, consider going “up” to maximize the space. Use a tall container in the center of a round or square area.

This will get larger plants up above the garden, leaving more surface area on the ground for other plantings. You can even add more tiers for more planting areas.

Photo credit: jsonline.com

A checkerboard pattern can be used in small gardens. It doesn’t need to be as elaborate as the photo to the right.

Four or six squares would still give you plenty of room for several crops.

This design would be perfect next to a small seating area where your guests could wander along the walkways admiring your garden crops along the way. Plant taller herbs in the center of each square and add in a few edible flowers for maximum interest.

If your available space is long and narrow, consider a trough arrangement.

You can often find concrete or stone troughs that are quite attractive and decorative. Or you can re-purpose livestock troughs as a garden planter.

Place it in the middle of your planting space or along a fence, and plant your tallest, bulkiest plants in this trough. This gets them off of the ground, leaving more ground space for shorter plants.

Believe it or not, a metal watering trough from the farm supply store may be just the solution for this elevated planter.

Raised Herb Garden Design

While these other designs used raised elements to add volume and space to the herb garden, a true raised herb garden design eliminates a great deal of stooping and bending usually associated with any type of gardening. Lower raised beds are equally good in the garden, especially if you live in an area with rocky or clay soil.

Many times a raised garden bed doesn’t add that much in the way of planting space, it just gets the plants up where you can reach them. The one exception is with square foot gardening.

4×4 Raised Bed Square Foot Herb Garden. Photo Credit: Two men & a little farm

Using the square foot gardening approach, here is a space-saving layout for an herb garden.

Square foot gardening is a popular method to minimize weeds, conserve water and space while maximizing the yield in your garden. It is widely used in many vegetable and herb-growing communities.

The square-foot layout is a great way for the very orderly gardener to plant herbs. Ideal for smaller spaces, each square will be designated for a single herb variety.

Want to build your own? Here are 6 easy steps to create your own square foot herb garden.

Square-Foot Herb Garden Setup

Select an area that receives 6-8 hours of sun.
Place weed cloth or thick cardboard on the ground to prevent weeds from growing into your herb bed.
Build or buy a four-foot square garden box. 6-8 inches deep is perfect.
Fill with soil. You can make your own planting soil with equal parts peat, vermiculite, and compost.
Add the grid – measured 12 inches apart, you can use twine & a nail or spare pieces of lumber to layout your squares.
Plant your herbs! Tall ones in the middle & shorter ones along the edges.

The white raised garden bed shown below is a pre-made kit perfect for the square-foot garden method. This is the 4 x 4-foot size and is 11 inches deep.

Vita Gardens 4×4 Garden Bed with Grow Grid

We like this planter since it doesn’t require any tools to set up. It is also made from a premium PVC material that won’t rot, fade or wear out over time.

Two or more kits can be used if you’d like to add vegetables or create a unique design in your backyard. You may decide to create pathways between each square. These pathways are often handicapped accessible with plenty of room for walking aids or wheelchairs.

When designing your own layout, any single planter should be narrow enough so you can easily reach the center of the planter without losing balance – four feet wide is normally a good rule of thumb.

The pyramid planter is a fun design that allows you to create several different planting sections. It is visually beautiful while also quite functional, as the design allows you to reach all sections without needing to step into the garden bed itself.

The Triolife 3-Tier Plant Pyramid

This is a truly unique herb garden design that will surely stand out from the crowd. It’s quite big at about 3 feet wide & 2 tall, so you can grow your entire herb garden in this planter.

Another popular design for the raised herb garden is the zigzag. It’s especially useful in small yards, where there just isn’t room for a checkerboard. With the zigzag pattern, you still have accessibility and can easily reach the centers of the planters, but the design lends visual interest.

Most raised beds feature some type of drainage in the retaining wall. A weed barrier is often laid on the ground, with the raised planter built on top. Drainage for these large areas can be a problem, so it requires some thought.

The drainage hole can be as simple as a gap left between two abutting landscaping logs or can be a perforated drain that channels away excess water.

Raised Garden Bed Kits

If you don’t want to build a raised garden from scratch, you can order a raised garden bed kit. Here are 2 types of raised garden kits that work well for herb gardens.

The first is a freestanding version. You can place the VegTrug Raised Garden Planter directly on a patio or deck which is a great way to create an herb garden when space is at a premium. It also is a great solution for anyone with a bad back.

The VegTrug 1 Meter Raised Planter

The planter box is about 30 inches high, so you won’t have to bend down at all while watering or clipping your fresh herbs.

A pre-formed liner and a built-in drainage system. This design will maximize your harvest and is easy to maintain and harvest without killing your knees in the process.

The Three Tier Garden

The second is another good design for small spaces since you can grow vertically.

3 Tier Elevated Garden Bed

This Tiered Garden Kit is very easy to put together and is made from natural wood with no chemicals added. The stacked design lets you plant several types of herbs and vegetables together in a compact area.

Purchasing a raised garden bed kit is a super easy way to start your herb garden without interfering with the rest of your garden landscape. Just locate a corner of your yard that gets great light and is close to the kitchen. Then simply set up your planter, add soil & herbs.

Don’t let awkward or limited spaces keep you from developing a great herb garden design. There is always a way to make small spaces work when gardening.

Sometimes you just need to be a little creative, then you can enjoy fresh, fragrant herbs year-round with your own herb garden.

five thoughts about the garden, transparency and herbs • Interior+Design

Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf (Piet Oudolf, b. 27.10. 1944) is called the best gardener of our time. He is the main inspirer of the "new wave" gardens on both sides of the Atlantic, the founder of Naturgarden - gardens made up of local cereals, meadowsweet and clover, which excite the imagination more than exotic parks.

About accidents of fate I was well into my twenties when I finally decided what I would do with my life. My family had their own business, we ran a restaurant. And at first my life was built around helping my parents, I had a lot of odd jobs. And one of them is in the garden center, where I subsequently got a permanent job, it interested me so much. This is how my love for gardening began. Then, at the age of 26, I had to study again - I went to university to learn all about plants. It took another five years before I started my own business. Already at the end of the 70s, my gardens were published in magazines, but these were mostly private gardens - large projects appeared in my life very late.

Gardens designed by Pete Oudolf in New York at The High Line

About the love of herbs The main thing in my career, I would say moving, it accelerated everything. We moved to Hummelo in the west of the Netherlands from our small design office in Haarlem near Amsterdam: I was already very passionate about plants by that time and we needed more space. We sold the house in 1981 and found an abandoned farm in the east, near the German border. At first, my plant nursery was more famous than my design work. Everyone admired our perennials and herbs.

Lurie Gardens in Chicago's Millennium Park

Back in 1982, we discovered that all herbs look great in the garden at any time of the year. They give the garden that natural, translucent look that is now famous. Some grasses also bloom beautifully - and these flowers persist until winter time - their shape is well read even under the snow.

You can arrange different types of herbs in an order that looks like a wild herb garden. Some varieties of grass need the support of others (sometimes literally, as grasses with denser stems support thinner ones). It is important to mix herbs from different continents - from Europe, North America, Asia, China.

One of Pete Oudolf's famous gardens is The Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK

About the benefits of working on the ground I have experience that most landscapers don't have. Having your own nursery and observing for years how plants from different continents behave is a luxury available to a few large landscape architects. It was then that the idea came to me that the "decoration" of the garden is not so necessary. I wanted more. And then I sought out people who are more into wildlife and plants. With those who have experimented more. Since the 1980s, I have been studying, collecting and testing plants to see how they might behave in new environments. I had to go to many conferences - and there I met people who were looking for new approaches in landscaping public spaces. It was my path to great architecture. At 19In 1996, I was commissioned to design a small park in Stockholm. So I left the field of private gardens for public projects. It was a success: gardens all over Sweden were modeled after that park, it became something of a standard.

Fragment of Piet Oudolf's private garden

About brown I have always said that brown is also a color. Completely independent and underestimated. I'm sure it's misunderstood by most people because they think it's the flowers themselves that carry color. But when you look at your garden in autumn, you will see that everything, even flowers, takes on a brown hue, and you need to take this into account as well as the time of bright flowering. Brown may be with a red tint, may be with yellow. It is impossible to create a beautiful year-round garden by focusing only on June and July plants when the roses are in bloom. Be sure to include plants that will look good in winter. I would advise you to forget about flowers in general and imagine how you will see the garden at the end of September. Your perception of the garden against the background of grass that has acquired a brown or orange tint will be very special.

Pete Oudolf in his own garden

About art and gardens Today's gardens speak about all the problems of our planet: about science, creativity, ecology. Even if you look at planting plans, they sometimes look like a work of art on their own. But I would be very careful to call gardening art. Since a huge number of ordinary people who are completely unrelated to art ideas are engaged in this, they simply equip their lives. Otherwise, we should call everyone artists. Gardening is not an art, but simply working on the ground - even if the garden looks like a very complex, thoughtful, multi-layered work. Recently, there have been so many discussions about whether the garden is art that I want to put an end to these discussions.

Many years: a herb garden in St. Petersburg designed by the Mokh bureau

A large-scale reorganization of the landscape of the entire New Holland park was carried out by the Dutch bureau West 8. As part of this project, the St. Petersburg bureau Mokh created a herb garden on an area of 800 sq. m. m between the terrace of the KuznyaHouse restaurant and the playground.

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

New Holland Island arose in the time of Peter the Great as a result of the construction of two canals. Initially, there were warehouses for ship timber and shipbuilding workshops. In the second half of the 18th century, wooden buildings were replaced with stone ones; so a whole architectural complex in the style of early classicism arose. In Soviet times, the warehouses of the naval base were located on the closed territory of New Holland. In 2010, Millhouse began restoring the island, and in 2011 it opened to the public for the first time in 300 years. Now it is not only an architectural monument, but also a unique park with restaurants and a rich cultural program.

The layout of the garden, designed by the Dutch bureau West 8, consists of a network of geogrid pebble paths encased in metal piping, branching off spontaneously from fairly wide functional walkways to the playground.

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

Literally the hottest place in modern St. whose popularity is easily explained.

“Gardens imitating wild meadows leave no one indifferent,” says Yury Fomenko, the author of the project. “They have everything, starting with pictures-memories from childhood, wind and dew drops in the panicles of cereals, amazing metamorphoses of the garden throughout the year and ending with an atmosphere of relaxation and tranquility. New Perennials style flower beds are built with a combination of grasses and perennials from all parts of the world, planted in large groups, taking into account the timing of flowering. Our task was complicated by the peculiarities of the existing layout of the park, due to which the flower garden with a total area of 800 sq. m does not open completely. Visitors perceive it in parts and only up close - from the terrace of the restaurant, from the lawn or from the walking path. This prompted the idea to make the garden heterogeneous in height and composition of plants, but with a bright repeating element.”

1. Knotweed. 2 Echinacea purpurea. 3 Groups of violet-blue and pink-purple perennials are delicately included between fluffy clouds of cereals.

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

"The garden has it all: the rustle of the wind, drops of dew in the panicles of cereals and memories from childhood"

It became one of the most beautiful annual plants - oak sage. The blue-violet waves of sage flow through the cereal field, blending with the cereals at the edges and dissolving into them - this blurring of the contour supports the overall feeling of naturalness. Sage blooms in the first half of June and blooms for about two months, and since four different varieties are used here and they bloom not at the same time, it blooms even longer in the mass.

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

A significant part of the flower garden is occupied by cereals up to two centimeters high5. They form distant plans and accent spots; those that are lower are planted in the center of the flower garden and along the paths. The main grass is pike, it is also a soddy meadow. Pike planted in large arrays; it grows in voluminous rounded bumps, and in June throws out bunches of panicles, which give the flower garden airiness and look spectacular until autumn.

photo: Richard Bloom

photo: Richard Bloom (Richard Bloom)

Perennials are present everywhere and in the waves of sage, arrays of them, they are reduced to compromise. “Small groups of flowering plants accurately place accents: somewhere they look elegant and subtle, and somewhere they look bright and piercing,” notes Yuri. - Perennials in the flower garden are secondary, but at the same time, as a talented actor in an episodic role, they are absolutely indispensable: thanks to them, the flower garden changes quite noticeably in two weeks, and after a month it begins to look completely new. Grasses and perennials are complemented by several types of annual plants: Bonar verbena, Lindheimer's gaura and common fennel. A fast-growing verbena with an openwork cap of bright purple-lilac inflorescences blooms for a very long time, from July almost to the end of September. White gaura gives lightness and light, and fennel delicately connects the color spots of neighboring plants with its yellow-green openwork umbrellas. By adding other annual plants, you can give the flower garden new features every year - so with well-chosen accessories the same outfit looks different.

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

Photo: RICHARD BLOOM

But what is definitely not here is the traditional "cottage" colors. No peonies, phloxes, daylilies, hostas - this was one of the wishes of the customer, the New Holland: Cultural Urbanization company. “We selected plants that are comfortable in the St. Petersburg climate, which are combined with cereals, and after flowering hold their foliage well and have a neat appearance,” says the landscape architect. - In addition, the structure of the flower garden in winter was taken into account. We do not prune most of the perennials and grasses for the winter, and they act as a frame before the heavy snowfalls that bring them down.”

Photo: Richard Bloom

photo: Richard Bloom (Richard Bloom)

It is more often entered and watch the garden blooms with new colors

9000 in general seven thousand plants.