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Planning a herb garden layout


Flexible Design Plan for a Simple Formal Herb Garden

By

Marie Iannotti

Marie Iannotti

Marie Iannotti is a life-long gardener and a veteran Master Gardener with nearly three decades of experience. She's also an author of three gardening books, a plant photographer, public speaker, and a former Cornell Cooperative Extension Horticulture Educator. Marie's garden writing has been featured in newspapers and magazines nationwide and she has been interviewed for Martha Stewart Radio, National Public Radio, and numerous articles.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 05/11/21

The Spruce /  Marie Iannotti

Formal herb gardens—with their symmetry, knots and interweaving textures—can look intimidating. But to create a simple formal herb garden, all you really need to do is choose a geometric shape, like a circle or a square, divide it into sections of equal size and fill each section with similar or complementary plants. Designing a formal herb garden is easy enough. Just don't lose sight of the maintenance involved with keeping order in your herb garden. The more precise the lines, the more any wayward plants will stick out like a sore thumb.

A less labor-intensive approach is to give your herb garden the bones of a formal layout and then fill it with exuberant herb plants that can be allowed to mature, fill in and spread without constant supervision.

Choosing Plants for an Herb Garden

When selecting plants for a formal herb garden, consider the growth habits and mature sizes of the plants. Place low creepers, like thyme and chamomile, on opposite path edges to complement each other. Put more aggressive herbs, like mints and lemon balm, in pots either above or below the ground.

Most herbs used for culinary purposes won't be allowed to flower early in the season. So focus on texture and foliage color to bring a sense of fullness to your herb garden design.

Make sure all the plants can be accessed, both for harvesting and maintenance, without walking into the beds. The paths should be at least three feet wide for easy walking. Since this is a formal garden, the paths can be paved or mulched to provide the axis for the garden.

The garden design shown here contains 20 different herb plants. Most of these plants will flower at some point in the season, but there is plenty of variety with just the plant shapes and textures. The sprawlers are kept to a minimum, to retain a somewhat formal feel. You can, of course, improvise any way that suits you.

The color scheme is another unifying element that adds to the formality. It makes use of the complementary color combos of purple/yellow and blue/orange. If the orange of the calendula and nasturtiums is too bold for you, you can always substitute one of the paler yellow varieties or the pink variety of calendula.

The center of a formal herb garden is usually the focal point. Even though there is a formality, the focal point is a chance for you to show your gardening personality. It could be a large herb plant, such as a sweet bay tree or large potted rosemary. Many gardeners like to put a garden ornament in the center of their herb gardens, like a birdbath, either as a bath or as a planter. Another popular feature is placing a sundial in a small center bed and surrounding it with thyme plants. Whimsy is permitted in a formal herb garden.

Below is a list of plants used in this basic garden design (read on for more detail), but remember, the plants you choose to use (and number and variety) will depend on the specifics of your garden.

  1. Lavender bee balm
  2. Thyme
  3. Cilantro
  4. Lavender
  5. Lemon balm
  6. Borage
  7. Tarragon
  8. Nasturtium
  9. Chives
  10. Purple sage
  11. Dill
  12. Lemon thyme
  13. Greek oregano
  14. Bronze fennel
  15. Golden variegated sage
  16. Calendula
  17. Parsley
  18. Basil assortment
  19. Chamomile
  20. Bird bath

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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!

25 best summer cottage planning projects

There are many photos on the Internet depicting impeccably designed summer cottages. They photographed beautiful cottages with terraces and pools, surrounded by well-composed flower gardens. Everything looks perfect in the pictures, but how to achieve such perfection in your summer cottage. Everything starts with planning. First, the land allotment and everything related to it is examined, and after that a plan for the future estate is drawn up.

Contents

Site analysis

Pre-project analysis of the site helps to plan it with the greatest practicality. This is a kind of diagnostic that will show where it is best to build a house, where to plant a garden, how to prepare the soil for planting.

What does the analysis of the territory include:

It is important to pay attention to the very shape of the site. Its configuration determines the distribution of zones for various purposes and the trajectory of garden paths.

Where to build a residential building

The main building on the summer cottage is a house. Subsequently, it cannot be moved in one direction or another, therefore, when choosing a place for its construction, the proverb “measure seven times, cut once” is true. First of all, you need to know where it is definitely impossible to build it. In the practice of building residential buildings, there are restrictions of a purely practical nature, as well as building codes and regulations (SNiP).

Basic rules in plain language:

After taking into account all the restrictions determined by various kinds of technical regulations, there remains a part of the land available for the legal construction of a house. Now you need to consider the location of the site in terms of ease of use.

It is not recommended to locate the house in the depths of plot , as its usable area will not be used rationally: the length of the path leading to the gate and the access roads to the utility yard and the house will increase. Yes, and each time to overcome a long way to the front door is not very convenient, especially in winter.

Zoning of the site

The division of the suburban area into zones is carried out for the same reason that partitions between separate rooms are installed in the apartment. Only instead of brick walls, something else is used here. The division into zones in most cases does not imply the creation of clear boundaries from blank fences. Thanks to this, in order to get, for example, from a place of rest to a garden, it is not necessary to bypass a long fence.

Basic principles for dividing a site into zones

Approach to the zoning of the cottage should be, considering the features of the relief of the land plot, its location in relation to neighboring houses and, of course, taking into account your desires. In most suburban areas there are 4 separate zones from one another.

As a rule, there are 4 main zones:

  1. Economic. Located behind the house, therefore often called the "back yard", includes a shed for inventory, a workshop;
  2. Garden and garden. May also be separated by a conditional boundary;
  3. Recreation area. Equipped with a gazebo, canopy, decorative elements;
  4. Yard. Platform in front of the front door.

Each of these zones can be divided into sub-zones. A large yard often has a patio or space for a garage.

Patio area in the yard

If the yard is small, a place for a garage and parking is allocated in the utility part, but a separate entrance for the car is planned.

In addition, it is possible to make additional sites adapted to the needs of family members: sports, creative, relaxation. If there are children in the family, a playground is created in the recreation area or in the yard, which can be combined with a sports ground.


How to properly zone a plot - see our video:

How to divide zones

Decorative fences are used to separate one zone from another. They are made in the form of a lattice or a low fence and do not block the view of the landscape.

Spectacular landscape trellis

You can also use a hedge of deciduous shrubs or conifers.

The use of hedges on the plot

Different types of flower beds are an excellent way to distinguish between flower beds: borders, flower borders and mixborders. They break along the demarcation paths.

A solid fence for zoning can only be used when it is necessary to completely fence off any part of the site. For example, dust is brought into the yard from the garden by the wind and it needs to be protected from dirt. A decorative hedge will not help in this case, you need to install an impenetrable fence or create a high hedge. It is recommended to proceed in the same way when it is required to completely separate the economic part of the cottage.

Tip. If the relief of the site has elevation differences, retaining walls are used as a dividing element. 3-4 wide steps on the steepest slope will make it easier to move around the territory and become a natural transition between separate areas: a garden and a vegetable garden, a yard and a resting place.

Where to make garden beds and a garden

Statistics show that the garden and garden occupy up to 75% of the land in the country house, and divide them in half between them. Consequently, about 25-30%, that is, almost a third of the total area, goes under vegetable beds. That's enough. Considering that the garden is not the most aesthetic object on the site, it is usually set up on the outskirts, at the far border.

It is impossible to grow a good crop of vegetables without watering, so when planning a garden, it is important to think about the way water is supplied. These can be pipes laid in the ground, a well drilled directly next to the beds, or a large tank filled with water using a hose.

An area that is too shaded will also not produce high yields. It should not be surrounded by tall trees or a fence blocking sunlight. For this reason, the garden is not arranged on a narrow strip between the garden and a solid hedge, on the north side of the house or on the north slope.

Fruit trees are planted in several ways: in one place in a large group, in one row along the border of the site, pointwise throughout the dacha.

Garage and outbuildings

If the area permits, it is better to arrange a garage with parking for personal vehicles next to the house, but on the opposite side from the main entrance.

In this case, the yard will be completely freed, and there will be a great opportunity to create a beautiful landscape in it with an artificial reservoir, flower beds, a stone garden. This location of the garage will allow you to build it under the same roof with utility rooms: a woodcutter, a square, a change house for garden tools. Each of these rooms has a separate entrance.

When the house is planned close to the side border of the plot, the area between it and the opposite border has to be divided into two parts: a courtyard and a place for a garage. In this position, it is better when the facade of the house with the front door is turned towards the street, since the porch will not occupy the usable area between the garage and the wall of the building. Ennoble the yard flower garden, broken at the garage wall.

Arrangement of a recreation area

Different people may have different ideas about recreation. For some, this is training on the sports ground, for others, relaxation by the pool, and for others, barbecue with friends. But for all this you need to allocate a place and equip it appropriately.

Principles for planning a place to spend your leisure time

When choosing a place to spend your leisure time, it is recommended to follow three rules. Rest area must be:

  1. Hidden from prying eyes;
  2. Be close to home;
  3. Protected from wind and, if possible, from rain.

A patio area is arranged in the spacious yard. It is not far from the entrance to the house, so in the summer season you can start every morning with coffee in the fresh air and end the day here with a cup of tea. If the area of ​​the yard does not allow or is already occupied by parking, a garage, a playground, then the resting place is arranged on an open terrace. It is no less romantic than the patio, and besides, all the tea and coffee facilities are at hand.

For a small company to relax, you can make a gazebo in the garden. In the gazebo itself or not far from it, a barbecue is installed or a place for barbecue is provided. The surrounding background is designed accordingly.

Pond

A pond, stream, waterfall, cascade and other hydraulic structures are created as independent decorative objects or as part of a composition with an alpine slide.

What exactly to choose for the improvement of a suburban area depends on its area. So, even a not very long stream will take up a lot of space and for this reason is not suitable for arranging a small area (the exception is the layout without a garden).

The reservoir is located in a visible, open place, away from trees, the foliage of which can clog the water. Integrated into a recreation area, a pond or stream will perfectly complement the landscape and make leisure time more enjoyable.

If for technical reasons it is not possible to create a reservoir, you can make a dry stream. Unlike a water stream, it has its own advantages: it does not attract insects, it is safe for children.

Auxiliary architectural structures

Small architectural structures will help to dilute the landscape and make it more saturated. Sometimes they are purely aesthetic, but they can also have a practical purpose. These are various types of gazebos, pergolas, bridges, well log cabins and more. Such elements are surrounded by flower beds and ornamental vegetation. You need to install them in the appropriate places: in the recreation area, in the garden, in the yard.

It is not customary to decorate a garden with artistic elements, but you can do something in it. For example, it is permissible to build a small bench and a pergola in the form of an arch, in the shade of which it is pleasant to rest.

If vegetable beds are interspersed with flower beds, they are arranged as part of the landscape landscape and complemented with various decorative elements: wattle fence, windmill, garden figures, flowerpots with spicy plants.

Layout of plots of non-standard shape

As a rule, there are no special difficulties with the layout of plots of irregular shape. On the contrary, they can create unusual, exclusive landscapes. The main thing is not to be afraid to stand out against the background of standard solutions.

If the plot is elongated

A long allotment of land only at first glance seems difficult to plan. In fact, such a site has an important advantage: it is easier to divide it into zones. They are divided one after another according to the degree of importance or aesthetic indicators: a residential area, a children's and sports ground, a barbecue area, a garden, a vegetable garden, a bathhouse, and at the very end the economic part.

The house is not being built right behind the entrance gate. It is recommended to leave enough space between the facade and the fence for a front garden, covered shed or paved patio. Since there is not much space left for the garage, it is better to include it in the project of the house, placing it in the basement, and arrange parking on the site in front of the gate.

All zones are connected by one path, laid along the edge or in the center of the estate. It is desirable that the path has a winding trajectory - this will help visually expand the boundaries of the site, make it visually more spacious.

Important. It is better to make a fence along the boundary with neighbors low and not continuous. Firstly, it gives less shade, and secondly, a light enclosing structure will hide the tightness of the territory.

If the plot is with a slope

The big disadvantage of the plots with a slope is the complexity of their arrangement, additional costs for strengthening the slopes and creating flat areas. But if you are not afraid of all this, the height differences open up the possibility of creating an exclusive landscape with terraces. The already existing mountainous terrain allows you to create a waterfall with a cascade and an alpine slide in conditions that are closest to natural.

The house is being built at the highest point. This location will protect the building from spring floods and landslides. In addition, the entire site and the surroundings closest to the estate are well viewed from the height. An exception is a slope that slopes down to the north side: it is recommended to build a house on it approximately in the middle so that the building does not completely obscure the land allotment.

Practical tips for landscaping on a slope:

If the plot is square

Oddly enough, a plot that has the shape of a regular square is quite difficult to plan. You can spoil everything by building a house in the center. With this arrangement, there remains a distance between the fence and the building that is not sufficient for its rational use. Of course, this does not apply to large areas.

It is best to visually divide the territory into 2 equal parts, and divide the one closer to the street into halves again. A house is being built on one of them, and the second is allocated for a yard, a parking lot and a garage. The remaining half of the plot is distributed between the garden and the garden. In this case, garden beds are broken up on the south or east side so that fruit trees do not block sunlight.

Features of planning plots of different sizes

The requirements for the location of houses are the same for small and large plots. Having found a place for a house, in accordance with the law of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it is permissible to distribute the rest of the land at your discretion. What will be planned on it - an agricultural farm, a backyard garden, a tennis court - is the business of the owner of the dacha.

6 acres

Six acres, these are the standard dimensions of a Soviet-era land plot. Since the land in the neighborhood is occupied by the same summer cottages, in most cases there is no opportunity to expand, and the lack of space forces you to save space. This can be done by building a house with an attic: the building occupies less land, and the living area of ​​​​the premises almost doubles. Also, you can free up part of the area by making a garage on the ground floor of the house or in the basement.

It is not recommended to save on the recreation area by using the area for a vegetable garden or fruit bushes. If it is planned to build a bathhouse on 6 acres, a recreation area is arranged between it and a residential building. In this case, the distance from the house to the bath will be 6 m or more.

10 acres

If the plot has an area larger than 6 acres, this does not mean that you need to take more space for a garden. The family's need for vegetables remains the same, and growing the surplus, which then has to be distributed to neighbors and acquaintances, takes a lot of time and labor. In a dacha of 10 acres (without prejudice to other important areas), a pool will fit perfectly. It is mounted in a sunny place where the water will warm up well.

Important. It should be noted that a pond in the country is fashionable, but it cannot replace a pool. When a choice has to be made between them, priority should be given to the pool.

All decorative objects require attention and care. Garden figurines, bridges, ponds, benches, etc. need to be painted, varnished and repaired. Therefore, you should not overload the site with unnecessary details, otherwise there may be very little time left for rest.

12 acres

When developing a project for a summer cottage on 12 acres, you can not stop at any one style. It is more convenient to break a kitchen garden and a garden in strict geometric outlines, and the landscape of a recreation area can have an arbitrary design.

The space near the house is designed as the front part of the site. In the gap between the facade and the fence, an alpine slide, rockery or Japanese garden is created.

If the cultivation of the crop does not take precedence in the plans for the future, the house is located at a sufficient distance from the road. Recreation areas are distributed throughout the dacha and interspersed with artificially created elements of the natural landscape, flower beds, lawns. All this is connected together by winding garden paths.

In the case when you need to get vegetables, fruits and berries from the site for harvesting for the winter, there will be enough space on 12 acres to create recreation areas and a garden. When considering the layout of the land plot, you should be creative and find something that will give the country landscape a uniqueness.

How to properly plan your plot - see our video:

dizlandshafta

Garden planning

About hacienda » Plot » Landscaping

Landscaping

Planning your garden with a thoughtful decision will help you avoid many mistakes, and in the future it will greatly reduce the time to care for it.

Layout of the garden plot. The illustration for this article is used under the standard license ©ofazende.ru
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Don't buy plants before you have finished planning your garden.

Contents

Family Council

If even the youngest members of the family want to participate in the planning of the garden, allocate a small plot of land for their creative ideas, so that in the future they will look after their own part of the garden.

Where to start?

First of all find out the wishes and preferences of all garden owners. They can be both purely practical in nature and relate to issues related to the overall design of the site and the selection of plants. Write it all down on paper and mark here the places suitable for planting, as well as related work. Gradually, the chaotic wish list will become orderly, and you can quickly decide which idea can be sacrificed in the name of creating a holistic harmonious concept.

Do not forget, however, that when developing a promising garden design, one cannot be guided by the momentary desires of all participants in the discussion. After all, children will grow up, adults will grow old, work will take up a lot of time, the house will need to be rebuilt, etc.

Since many of these possibilities can be foreseen in advance, later the necessary changes will require less effort. For example, on the site of a children's sandbox, in a few years it will be possible to arrange a barbecue area or a small pond. It is better to put a swing where later it will be possible to build a shed for inventory, a greenhouse or a pergola. Thoughtful planning will take you more time, and the implementation of your plans will require large financial investments, but in the future the efforts expended will result in significant savings in both time and money.

Garden plot. The illustration for the article is used under the standard license ©ofazende.ru

Planting a hedge

At first, the hedge looks very rare, because trees and bushes need to be planted at some distance from each other. But in a few years their crowns will close, and the hedge will become thicker and taller.

Live fence care. The illustration for the article is used under the standard license ©ofazende.ru

Plants grow up

All trees and shrubs, with the exception of dwarf forms, grow in height and width throughout most of their lives. This circumstance should be taken into account when planning a garden, especially when it comes to bushes and trees that determine its structure. The growth of trees and shrubs can be limited by pruning, but if you plant varieties of a certain size, this time-consuming procedure is not required at all.

Vegetable garden at the dacha. The illustration for the article is used under the standard license ©ofazende.ru

All of the above applies to herbaceous perennials. They close the entire area of ​​the flower garden only 2-4 years after planting. Therefore, when designing it, always consider the final dimensions of the plants. You can fill the gaps between perennials in a young flower garden with beautifully flowering perennials, and if perennials are planted too densely, they will have to be thinned out after a few years.

Rejuvenate old gardens

Rebuilding an overgrown, run-down garden is a thankless task: in this case, it is difficult to find an alternative design solution. The old garden is dominated by tall trees, and therefore technical means are not particularly deployed here.

On the other hand, in most old gardens the soil is well structured and highly fertile. Therefore, first of all, decide which plants and which parts of the garden infrastructure (paths, fences, buildings, etc.

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