Hi Jennifer,
First I must say I am very flattered you would ask me to give you advice on herbs to grow in your area.
One thing that mystifies me is you are in zone 7 and on some maps I am in zone 9 or 8.
Our climates are almost the same.
Maybe it is because you are on a coastal plain and live in a micro climate.
As far as I can tell you could grow rosemary and bay trees where you live.
One way to find out is to ask a local nursery what is successful in your area.
Hill hardy rosemary is one that is listed for zone 7.
What type of soil do you have?
Rosemary likes a well drained soil and if you get over 50 inches of rain in less than a year like we did this year and the roots stay wet the plants will die.
Many of mine did and I wasn’t at home to stop it.
Gorizia did the best with the wet weather.
What kind of yard do you have, how big is it?
Do you have trees in the yard?
My yard has many slopes and trees.
This allows me to design an informal landscape without all of the strait lines folks see in most yards.
One of my friends told me that I would be working on it for the rest of my life.
Another thing you can consider and that is if you have a lot of grass is to get rid of most of it and put in islands of flowering plants that attract butterflies and humming birds.
What I have in my yard is a long and growing list.
I have to tell you I like specimen planting over the formal garden.
Cigar plants, red flowers
Hummingbird bushes, red flowers
Vitex trees, blue flowers
Variegated ginger,
Tri color ginger, purple on the bottom of the leaf with white and green on the top,
Butterfly weed, red yellow flowers
canna lilies. Orange flowers
Texas mountain laurel blue flowers that smell like grape cool aid,
Loquat trees (Fruit is good)
Yellow bells,
Tropical salvia (red flowers)
Barbados cherry, (red edible berries but the birds get them (not a real cherry)
Spider lilies white flowers.
Japanese red maple,
Oleander, red flowers
Rosemary, light blue flowers
Trumpet vine, orange flowers
Pride of Barbados, yellow orange flowers
Pomegranate tree, red flowers,
Some lavender that survived the rain,
Elephant ears,
Some strange succulent that puts out yellow flowers,
Hibiscus, orange and red
Bears breeches, strange seeding habits, it can throw seeds thirty feet.
Leopard plant, yellow flowers
Bay trees (one keeps getting eaten back by a deer.)(I’m going to eat that deer)
And the list goes on.
This is just in the front yard; I haven’t even started on the back.
As for herbs you can plant these in the islands and have an herb garden, there are many that will grow in your area.
Just some ideas,
A picture of your yard would be nice so folks could come up with ideas.
Worth
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