Growing Herb Plants in the Garden

Herbs

culinary herbs

Herbs are plants, but we usually think of herbs as a certain plant having aromatic and flavorful parts, whether leaves, seeds or roots. Our first thoughts are often of culinary herbs, but plants which are particularly useful for any reason might come under a category of herb plants. Plants used for medicinal purposes, for dying cloth, for nurturing honeybees, all are planted in the modern herb garden. In the scientific Latin label the descriptive “officinalis” is a tip that the plant was once an important herb for medicinal use.

Herbs in this sense, of any plant we find useful for a purpose such as flavoring food, have departed in meaning from the scientific definition of herbs as plants which do not have woody parts ( upper parts which die down), thus “herbaceous”. Our use of “herbs” in the garden can include Bay trees, shrubs, as well as the usual suspects of basil, parsley, and chives.

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