Herb Gardening Tips, Ideas, and Advice

People have been growing herbs for thousands of years. Herbs were once an essential part of life–used to preserve food and make it more nourishing, for medicinal purposes and for religious ceremonies. Imagine how bland food would be without all the condiments and how dull cooking would become if we didn’t experiment with adding a sprinkle of this herb and a dash of that herb. Those keen cooks who are also good gardeners know the pleasure of growing these plants for their wonderful qualities such as beneficial oil-filled aromatic leaves and tasty stems, fruits or seeds.

Botanically, a herb is a plant, usually succulent and soft, that does not develop woody tissue (known as secondary growth), at any stage of its life, which can be an ephemeral season, or of several years’ duration. That said, there are many plants which today we think of and use as herbs but which don’t fall strictly into this botanical category. Rosemary is a perfect example. Look at the plant botanically and you will see stems that are quite woody, resulting in its classification as a shrub. However, the softer, upper sprigs of the plant have been used to flavor all manner of dishes over the years, so there’s a blurring between the scientific and culinary terms of this plant we call a herb.

You don’t need a degree in botany to be a successful gardener, but understanding a little about how plants are named, plant groups, the life cycles of plants and what their basic needs are can help you to be a successful herb gardener.

Understanding Plant Names

At first, the scientific names of plants can seem daunting and confusing. New gardeners can sometimes feel a touch of anxiety when faced with complicated Latin names, but if you take some time to understand what is behind the name, then you will discover that it’s not as daunting as you first thought. But why use a scientific name when you can use a common name? Well, you might know a particular plant by the common name of bee balm, for instance. But if you go to an out-of-town nursery and ask for bee balm, you may only get a puzzled look. Perhaps they call the plant bergamot, or maybe Oswego tea, based on the fact that American pioneers used it as an herbal tea. Or if you are looking for bee balm in a catalog, you may only find it under its botanical name, Monarda didyma. So, one plant can have several different common names.

Likewise, one common name can apply to several different plants. For instance, you may want to grow an herb with the common name loosestrife. This can refer to a creeping perennial with golden flowers known by the botanical name Lysimachia nummularia; to a tall perennial with large white flowers in a swan-necked spike, L. clethroides; to its less invasive counterpart, L. ephemerum; or to a spreading, long-blooming, purple-flowered plant, Lythrum salicaria (which is the herb). If you order loosestrife without using a botanical name, you stand a good chance of receiving the wrong plant.

Becoming familiar with the scientific names of the plants you want to grow helps you buy exactly what you want. Most botanical names are based on Latin, so they can be a mouthful. However, the names will be the same in all countries around the world, despite differences in the native language. Botanical names rarely change, usually only when scientists update the name to better reflect what they have discovered about the plant’s heritage. If you have learned an older name, you will usually find it listed beside the newer names in nursery catalogs.

As you have probably noticed by now, botanical names usually have two parts. The first name is the genus to which the plant belongs; this refers to a group of closely related plants. The second word
indicates the species, a specific kind of plant in that genus. You may end up growing several different species from the same genus. For example, Achillea millefolium and A. tamentosa both belong to the genus Achillea, commonly known as yarrow. But the first, Achillea millefolium, refers to a species with finely cut leaves, while A. tomentosa refers to one with particularly fuzzy leaves.

Botanical names can be easier to remember if you determine what they tell you about the plant. Some refer to the person who discovered the plant or to the part of the world in which it was discovered. For instance, Sanguinaria canadensis is bloodroot, a native of Canada and the eastern United States. Other botanical names are descriptive. Viola odorata is sweet violet, which bears an especially fragrant flower.

Horticulturists and botanists recognize two other classifications of plants that you will often encounter: varieties and cultivars. Although the names are sometimes used interchangeably, plants that develop a natural variation in the wild are called varieties, and the varietal name is included as part of the botanical name after the abbreviation “var.”. This is the case with American mint, Mentha arvensis var. villosa. It differs from corn mint M. arvensis by having hairier leaves, a pleasant aroma, and pink or white flowers rather than lilac flowers.

Cultivars, whose names are set in single quotes after the botanical names, are plants that gardeners or horticulturists have selected and propagated as part of a breeding program or that have resulted from a chance mutation. Aster novi-belgii ‘Professor Anton Kippenburg’ is a blue New York aster.

You may also come across hybrids, which are blends of two species. One example is Anemone x hybrida. The “x” indicates that this plant is a hybrid.