Creating Your Own Herb Rock Garden

When I was a kid, I lived out in a rural community and we only had clay dirt once you dug about 6 or 12 inches down. When you’re planning your garden, you’ve got to put sun and dirt quality at the top of the list of things to consider. You need the right balance of both as well as the necessary water. With the right combination of water, sod and light, you can grow just about anything.

To solve my clay soil problems, I turned to rock gardening, which focuses on adding lots of rocks to your landscape and focusing on plants that only need a few inches of good sod.

If you have got a similar situation, you can raise your own rock garden. Some herbs truly love the rocky craggy earth that you can find in areas like this all over the world. With excellent drainage, adequate light and all the nooks and crannies around the rocks where roots can dig in, rock gardens may be just the thing for you to experiment with.

Rock gardens work toward keeping the herb compact and controlled. Another tip is to seek out herbs with silver or gray foliage. This is a big tip-off that these herbs can do well in this environment.

• Hen-and-Chicks: {I cannot imagine cutting open a hen or chick and rubbing it on a wart, but this perennial succulent herb, which is also known as St. Patrick’s cabbage, has a long history of doing just that.} Each leaf will hold enough water to make it through one day without water. Each one will grow to four inches across and each “hen” will have many off-shoots or “chicks.” You will enjoy the reddish-pink blooms that can appear atop a 9 inch spike that shoots straight up from the center of each cabbage in the summer. The herb will continue to add chicks and grow into a colony of hens-and chicks.

• Wild Oregano: Even though this perennial comes from the warm climate of the Mediterranean Sea, it should grow to about 30 inches high in your herb garden. You can cook with its green oval leaves and be sure to take full, deep breaths of its wonderful aroma. You’ll also love the purple flowers, which should bloom in August. This isn’t the same variety of oregano that you find in Italian dishes, but you can eat it.

• Marjoram: Not only can you cook with marjoram, but you can use it to landscape your rock garden. It’s a perennial that has a sweet scent with oval gray-green leaves and tiny white flowers. For marjoram to retain its shape and form, keep it trimmer back (use the clippings in your Italian dishes) so that it can keep growing well—full sun and the good drainage in your rock garden will help too.

• Thyme: Because there are a lot of varieties of thyme, you will want to be sure you’re getting the correct type for your rock garden—below a foot tall. Use those with shiny, little leaves that are huddled along the woody stems. As an added benefit, these usually have white or pink blossoms. Thyme grows best when the earth is sandy, well-drained and gets a whole lot of sunlight. Thyme has a tendency to grow like crazy, so keep it clipped back to maintain its compact shape.

The contrast between the rocks and the herbs can dazzle the eyes, without losing any of the other sensations, including aroma and flavor.

Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.

Here is more information on Herb Garden Designs. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.

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