Herbs

Salvia rosmarinus - Rosemary

Height: Rosemary typically grows to a height of 1 to 1.5 meters.
Flowering Season: Rosemary blooms with beautiful blue or purple flowers in the spring.
Care Tips: Plant rosemary in well-drained soil and ensure it receives full sunlight. It is a drought-tolerant herb and requires minimal watering once established.
Pruning: Regular pruning helps maintain the shape and health of the plant. Trim the woody stems after flowering to encourage new growth.
Soil: Rosemary thrives in sandy or loamy soil with a pH level between 6 and 7.
Watering: Water rosemary sparingly, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.
Benefits: Rosemary is known for its aromatic fragrance and is a rich source of antioxidants. It is also believed to have anti-inflammatory and memory-enhancing properties.

Coriandrum sativumum - Coriander

Height in meters: Coriander typically grows to a height of 0.5 to 1 meter.
Flowering Season: Coriander produces small white flowers in the summer.
Care Tips: Plant coriander in well-drained soil and provide it with partial shade in hot climates. It requires regular watering to keep the soil moist.
Pruning: Pinch off the flower buds to prolong the leaf production. Harvest the leaves frequently to encourage new growth.
Soil: Coriander prefers fertile soil with good drainage.
Watering: Keep the soil consistently moist, but avoid overwatering to prevent root rot.
Benefits: Coriander leaves are widely used in cooking and are packed with essential nutrients. They are known for their digestive and anti-inflammatory properties.

Thymus vulgaris - Thyme

Height in meters: Thyme typically grows to a height of 0.1 to 0.3 meters.
Flowering Season: Thyme produces small pink, purple, or white flowers in the summer.
Care Tips: Plant thyme in well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight. It is a drought-tolerant herb and requires minimal watering once established.
Pruning: Trim the stems after flowering to maintain the compact shape of the plant. Regular pruning also encourages new growth.
Soil: Thyme thrives in well-drained soil with a pH level between 6 and 8.
Watering: Water thyme sparingly, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.
Benefits: Thyme is known for its aromatic flavor and is a rich source of vitamins and minerals. It has antimicrobial and antioxidant properties and is often used for respiratory and digestive health.

Lavandula angustifolia - Common lavender

Height: typically grows to a height of 30-40cm
Flowering Season: Purple, pink, blue or white flowers in late spring and summer
Care Tips: Plant in well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight. It is a drought-tolerant herb and requires minimal watering once established.
Pruning: Trim the stems after flowering to maintain the compact shape of the plant approximately 20cm to stop stems becoming woody.
Watering: Water sparingly, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.
Benefits: lavendar is known for its aromatic scent and is a rich source of vitamins and minerals. It has relaxing properties and is often used in soaps and sleep products. Pollinators love lavender.

Helichrysum italicum - Curry plant

Height: typically grows to a height of 0.1 to 0.5 meters
Flowering Season: yellow flowers in the summer
Care Tips: Plant well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight, they can tolerate drought conditions once established.
Pruning: dead head after flowering to maintain flowering season. Regular pruning also encourages new growth.
Soil: thrives in well-drained soil with a pH level between 6 and 8.
Watering:Water regularly during their growth period, and less often once mature. Deadhead spent blooms to encourage continuous flowering.
Benefits: known for attracting bees. Ideal
for flower arrangements silvery stems are great for craft projects. Medically it has scar healing properties and was known for its aphrodisiac properties!

Origanum vulgare - Oregano

Height: typically grows to 20-40 cm high
Flowering Season: produces small purple flowers in the summer, pollinators love it.
Care Tips: Plant in well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight. It is a drought-tolerant herb and requires minimal watering once established.
Pruning: If the plant becomes overly woody, cutting the stems all the way back to the ground will encourage more stems to sprout from the base. And ultimately this will result in a fuller plant.
Soil: thrives in well-drained soil with a pH level between 6 and 8.
Watering: Water sparingly, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.
Benefits/cons: Note that oregano is toxic to pets, so be mindful of where you plant it.
Both oregano and thyme thrive in similar growing conditions: lots of light and fairly dry soil. They also look similar at first glance. However, oregano leaves tend to be slightly wider and greener than thyme’s typically narrow, gray-green foliage. Oregano also has more of a pungent earthy aroma than thyme's lighter and more floral scent.

Mentha spicata - Spearmint

Height : 30cm to 100cm in height. The stem is square-shaped, a defining characteristic of the mint family of herbs and a wide-spreading fleshy underground rhizome from which it grows
Flowering Season: Spearmint produces flowers in slender spikes in the summer, each flower pink or white in colour, 2.5–3 mm
Care Tips: Gardeners often grow it in pots or planters due to its invasive, spreading rhizomes
Pruning: If you're pruning mint during the growing season, cut the plants back by about half. This will remove the tips of the plant where the flowers would otherwise bloom and provide plenty of mint for fresh use. When you perform mint plant pruning at the end of the year or end of season, cut them to within an inch (2.5 cm.) of the ground.
Soil: Spearmint ideally thrives in soils that are deep, well-drained, moist, rich in nutrients and organic matter, and have a crumbly texture
Watering: Water it whenever the top inch or so of soil has dried out. This is especially important whilst mint plants establish and during hot weather. If you grow spearmint in pots, regular watering will be even more crucial, as mint grown in pots or containers have less soil and therefore dry out quicker.
Benefits: Spearmint is used for its aromatic oil, called oil of spearmint. Spearmint oil used as a flavouring in toothpaste and confectionery and cosmetics e.g. shampoos and soaps.

Allium schoenoprasum - Chives

Height - of 0.1 to 0.3 meters.
Flowering Season: onion family. They form clumps of tiny bulbs that sprout narrow, cylindrical leaves up to 30cm (1ft) tall. These leaves can be harvested from spring to autumn, dying down over winter and re-sprouting every spring.
Care Tips: Plant in well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight or partial sunlight
Pruning: harvest regularly to keep fresh leaves coming. You can also make new plants every few years by dividing established clumps in spring.
Soil: Chives thrive in full sun and well drained soil rich in organic matter. The easiest and most successful way of growing chives is planting rooted clumps in spring, after frost danger has passed. You can easily grow chives indoors in a bright, sunny location. Harvest chives by snipping leaves from the base of the plant.
Watering: Water newly planted chives and young plants regularly for at least their first summer. For plenty of lush, succulent leaves, make sure chives don’t go short of water in warm, dry weather. Plants in containers can dry out quickly, so water them regularly throughout the growing season.
Benefits: Chives are also highly decorative, producing mauve pompom flowers in late spring and summer. The mild onion-flavoured leaves are used raw, finely chopped and scattered over salads, soups, fish dishes, eggs, baked potatoes and more. The flowers are edible too and can be used in a similar way to the leaves. The nectar-rich flowers also attract bees and other pollinating insects, so leave plenty for them to enjoy too.

Petroselinum crispum - Parsley

Height - 10 - 50 cm.
Flowering Season: produces small wwhite, flowers in the summer.
Care Tips: Plant thyme in well-drained soil and provide it with full sunlight. It is a drought-tolerant herb and requires minimal watering once established.
Pruning: When the leaf stems have at least three segments, parsley is ready to be harvested. Cut leaves from the outer stems of the plant whenever you need them. Leave the inner portions of the plant to mature. Ideally, allow 2 to 3 weeks for regrowth between major harvests.
Soil: Pick a spot that gets full sun (6+ hours of sunlight) and has well-draining soil that’s rich in organic matter. This herb needs more fertile soil than most herbs. Lightly mulch around the plants to conserve moisture.
Watering: Water regularly in well drained soil.
Benefits:If you want fresh parsley throughout the winter, replant a parsley plant in a pot and keep it in a sunny window.

Ocimum basilicum - Common basil

Height - basil typically grows to a height of 30 - 50 cm
Flowering Season: basil produces small pink, purple, or white flowers in the summer.
Care Tips: Basil will grow best in a location that gets 6 to 8 hours of full sun daily, though it can perform well in partial sun, too.
Pruning: After the seedlings have produced their first six leaves, prune above the second set. This encourages the plants to start branching, resulting in more leaves for harvest. Every time a branch has six to eight leaves, repeat pruning the branches back to their first set of leaves.
Soil: should be moderately fertile and moist but well-draining. Basil works great in containers or raised beds, as these allow for better drainage. The pH of the soil should ideally be in the range of 6.0 to 7.5 (slightly acidic to neutral).
Watering: Make sure that the soil is moist, use mulch around the plants to help hold in moisture and suppress weeds.
Benefits: Basil is a member of the mint family (Lamiaceae) and one of the most popular culinary herbs. It’s a warm-weather annual that can be planted outdoors with tomatoes as companions. They can be used to make delicious pesto and salads.