The Romantic Herb Garden

by Holmes, Caroline

• ISBN13: 9780789310477
• ISBN10: 0789310473
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-07
• Publisher: Universe

Summary

The must-have ingredient of any garden, herbs have long been the stalwarts of the cottage garden, imparting fragrance and health as well as flavor to beds and borders. However, today's garden designers have realized that herbs can also help to shape or be a key visual element in a garden. The Romantic Herb Garden shows how you can design with herbs, using these plants in an innovative and bold way as either a backdrop to or even the star of any garden scheme. In recent years the adaptability of herbs has enabled them to be used in healing gardens, herbaceous borders, paving, grazing gardens, walls and raisedbed planting, containers, and window boxes. This book shows how they can be used to great effect in gardens large and small, either smartly clipped for formal effects or allowed to go wild for a relaxed, been-there-forever look. In larger gardens herbs can give instant effect, providing color and texture while shrubs and herbaceous perennials settle in. In small gardens herbs can transformpaving, walls, and flowerbeds, in full sun or shade, within a few months. After looking at the many ways to use herbs, author Caroline Holmes discusses schemes that show herbs to their best advantage while working in harmony with the environment; she then inspires the reader with a number of practical and lowcost garden schemes that include herbs. Finally, a directory of herbs enables you to identify and select the rights ones for your garden, giving you a renewed enthusiasm and zest for planting.

Author Biography

Caroline Holmes is a leading gardening consultant, designer, lecturer, and broadcaster. A past chairman of the Herb Society, she regularly lectures and leads garden tours in Europe and America. She is the author of Monet at Giverny (2001) and also edited and contributed to Icons of Garden Design (2001).

Table of Contents

Using herbs	p. 6
Feasting your eyes	p. 10
Total fragrance	p. 16
Do me a flavour	p. 22
A touch of genius	p. 28
Sound health	p. 34
Infusing style	p. 40
Instant & long-term effect	p. 44
Edible landscape	p. 52
Freestyle	p. 58
Evening gardens	p. 64
Herb boundaries	p. 72
Texture & tone	p. 78
Design drama	p. 84
Groovy grids	p. 88
On top of the world	p. 98
Wafting walls & lurking corners	p. 98
The salad basket	p. 104
Cordials & aphrodisiacs	p. 110
Jungle herbs	p. 118
Fast food	p. 124
Shaping up	p. 130
Tell me a story	p. 136
Directory of herbs	p. 140
Gardens to visit	p. 150
Glossary	p. 155
Index	p. 156
Acknowledgments	p. 160
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.