SERIOUS WORK AT PLAY
Other people shop for shoes, handbags or watches. Not me — but let me into a garden centre or plant fair and I can’t help myself. My latest plant purchases were made on the grounds that they were gifts for others.
I splashed out in the seedling aisle buying herbs in small pots and punnets to create herb pots for gifts. Then of course I had to buy several nice terracotta pots and on the way through spied a few plants I just had to have for the garden.
Herbs are very moreish plants as they come with many variations in size, shape and flavour. Thyme, basil and mint in particular offer many choices when it comes to both flavour and colour.
I am using my purchases to pot up pots of sweet basil and also small pots of basil boxwood, as you can never have too much basil over summer. While sweet basil can reach around 40-60cm high, basil boxwood (Ocimum basilicum ‘Boxwood’) forms a rounded compact bush to around 20cm. Its small leaves resemble those of box (hence the variety name ‘Boxwood’) but with a distinct basil flavour. It looks good in a pot or as a garden edging.
While sweet basil and basil boxwood are annual herbs that grow through the warm months of the year, my other selections are perennials, which means they’ll continue to grow and produce tasty leaves to use in the kitchen year round.
I splashed out on several different types of thyme, all of which create a low, dense groundcover but can also be used to spill over the edge of a pot. I already have common thyme growing well along the edge of a paved pathway.
I can dig up small pieces of this add to the gift pots I am planting, but I’ve also bought lemon thyme, variegated lemon thyme and pizza thyme.
As well as adding interesting scent to the plantings, variegated plants add colour contrast. For quick growth I’ve added oregano, which is a long-lived perennial herb that also forms a groundcover in the garden and can be used as a spillover plant in a container or beside steps or a path. A punnet of chives turned out to be a very good investment as it yielded dozens of tiny seedlings, which will form small grassy clumps in the gift pots.
For extra colour in the containers I’ve also popped in a few white alyssum seedlings transplanted from the garden. They’ll spill over the edges of the pots.
Other flower options for herb pots include dwarf nasturtium and French marigold.
All these plants, like most culinary herbs, need well-drained soil. In containers they grow best in shallow pots filled with good quality potting mix and can be grown in terracotta or plastic pots or troughs, or planted into quirky recycled containers All need full sun but most cope with a little shade in summer.
Sage pots
In addition to the mixed herb pots, I am also planning ornamental pots of sage.
Sage is the traditional herb in a turkey or chicken stuffing and is often used in winter dishes such as stews, as it is one herb to be relied on over the colder months of the year. It can also be used to make sage butter and added to flavour vinegar.
Sage is actually a type of edible salvia (Salvia officinalis), part of the large and fragrant mint family, and forms a small leafy shrub to around 90cm high. Its leaves and new growth are flushed with deep purple tones. As well as the common grey-green form, there are also variegated sages, which can also be used in cooking.