The mere thought of designing herb gardens from scratch can be stressful but the truth is creating your own herb garden can help you relax once you know your way through. Just think about the herbs growing because of your hard work- it can truly be amazing.
Mostly, beginners tend to dwell on the time devoted to the maintenance. The answer is pretty simple- it depends on the size of your garden; the smaller your garden is, the lesser time you’ll spend on maintenance. For beginners, it is advised that they start small when it comes to designing herb gardens to get a feel to what they are doing. After that step, the gardener can then add more plants little by little or just leave the garden to that size.
Talking about designing herb gardens, one must consider and think in advance how it would look when all the herbs are fully grown. Would you want it to be a square garden, a round garden or a rectangular garden? For a boxed shape garden, you’ll need a stake, string and/or yarn to make the outline of the box and for a rounded garden; you’ll need a garden hose and thick cord.
When designing herb gardens, you need to put into mind a picture of what you want it to look like. The most important thing when designing is to never forget the basics of gardening- sunlight, water and soil. Be certain that the garden is well ventilated as they need good old sun to keep them alive. For its water requirements, keep in mind it depends on the plant that you have- some needs less water and some needs more – so build soil and water specifications into your design.
It’s a good idea to map your garden plan on paper first using graph paper and a pencil. You’ll want to lay out your ‘hardscape’ first. These are all the permanent structures in the landscape that you will work around – like sidewalks, trees, driveways, fences, etc. Include those in your design for more character.
Next lay out your “softscape” – this is a fancy name for all the plants and living things that make up your garden and can be easily moved or changed. Using circles draw on your map and label the circles which represent what plants you will plant and where. This will give you a good idea of how many herb plants you need to buy or grow for your garden. You can also use garden software to design your garden, if you want to get serious or you love computers and want to combine your passion for computers and gardening into one – like me!
If you’re designing herb gardens to grow herbs indoors, you can use fluorescent lights or LED lighting though the choice of LED lighting can be quite expensive but helps out significantly. Selecting the plant pots is your other big design choice in designing herb gardens for your inside living space.
Now that you know the basic information in designing herb gardens, you already have an edge and a better chance to grow as well as maintain a garden. Just stick with the rules – light, moisture, soil and pattern and pretty soon, you’ll have a thriving herbal garden of your own.