Question for Worth...landscaping herbs

[jenn_sc]

Hi Worth (and all!)

I've seen posts where you mention landscaping with herbs like rosemary and bay laurel, even. I am curious and would like to know more! You see, we just moved into a house that has the crappiest little mismatched shrubs out front. I don't really care, but my husband hates it and has been pestering me to come up with some alternative to dress up the front of the house. Has to be neat, preferably low maintenance....and evergreen.

It occurred to me that neatly trimmmed rosemary bushes might do well, depending on the variety...and in another thread you mentioned bay laurel being a good "southern landscape" plant.I like the idea of useful plants used for decorative purposes! Would these herbs survive in zone 7 and do well? Are there any others?

Thanks in advance for any tips and/or ideas!

Jennifer

[Worth1]

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

[jenn_sc]

Thanks for the quick reply Worth!

The house is on one edge of a 14 acre plot. The area right in front of the house is a large rectange, probably 1/4 of an acre, with a large magnolia on one side and a pecan tree on the other.

We're mainly looking for something to replace the hedges along the house. I'm only interested in a huge veggie garden next year, mostly tomatoes of course! so I don't much care about the front of the house. The ugly little trimmed shrubs drive my husband crazy, and he wants me to DO something

So I may as well have herbs, which I will enjoy, if I can! We just moved in in July. I'm not sure about my soil conditions yet. I will say that our well water has high pH (husband is an aquarium hobbyist..tests the water often) so that may mean our soil has high pH too. It's not been very wet here, we've had drought conditions for a few years But I can suppliment water of course.

The house is a long, low brick house probably built in the 60's. I wish I knew how to post pics, but I'm logged on with a webtv and I've never figured out how to post pics with it. I can EMAIL pictures though...if it would help you make suggestions I'd be happy to send you a couple

Thanks again!

[akgardengirl]

Worth,
Would you take a pic of the strange succulent that puts out yellow flowers when you have the time? I really like succulents and want to see what it looks like.
Thanks,
Sue