Low Maintenance Garden – Herb gardens give you a bit of ‘Grow your Own’

garden design
Grow your own herbs - simple and low maintenance

Grow your own herbs – simple and low maintenance

If I had a pound for every time I had had the brief “I’d like a low maintenance garden but I’d like to grow my own fruit and veg” I could give up work tomorrow and never need worry again. Herb gardens could be the answer!

It is very difficult to get the balance between a low maintenance garden and “grow your own” garden. Herb gardens could be the answer! Ask any person that owns an allotment, and they will tell you that really need to attend to it at least every other day, in order to stay on top of the watering, seeding, pricking out, dealing with unwanted guests, and all the other things that go with producing beautiful vegetables and fruit.

There is a way around this. By planting perennials such as rhubarb, artichokes, and wild strawberries, you save the need for needing to re-seed, thin out and plant out all of your crops.

Another great way to use produce to fill your garden is to do a cracking herb garden. You could use brightly coloured pots, raised beds or plant directly into the ground. There are lots of kooky herb garden ideals all over the internet. There are a few herbs which are annuals such as basil and coriander but you can certainly grow these quite easily and successfully in a sunny spot in your garden. A bumper crop of herbs which are fairly bullet-proof should flourish year in and year out.

Herbs to consider would be a balance between the deciduous and evergreen varieties. Evergreen herbs include Rosemary, Bay, Sage (the purple Sage is particularly attractive as it creates a contrast in leaf colour) to name a few. You then have your deciduous varieties such as thyme, fennel, oregano, marjoram and that is just your basic herbs.

There are so many wonderful herbs on the market but once you get started you may find this a little addictive.