herbs for a dry garden

dryland-herbs_rosemary

Is there any­thing bet­ter than fresh herbs from the garden?

For years I had herbs in my fairly dry veg­gie gar­den. Some of the herbs herbs thrived. Oth­ers sulked. Some died.

For­tu­nately, if you’re try­ing to cut down on water­ing, you still have a huge num­ber of herbs to choose from. For instance, many of the plants that you think of imme­di­ately when you hear the word “herb” orig­i­nate in the Mediter­ranean, and many of them pre­fer less mois­ture than other gar­den plants.

Below, I’ve listed some com­mon herbs that have done well for me dry spots, along with oth­ers that I’ve seen doing well in quite dry con­di­tions. There are lots of other selec­tions, but this list can get you going with more than a summer’s worth of recipes.

  • Rose­mary (Ros­mar­i­nus offic­i­nalis): You can pick from forms that sprawl, form a shrub, or grow straight up in spires.
  • dryland-herbs_purple-sageSage (Salvia offi­cianalis): Euro­pean Gar­den sage comes in lots of ver­sions in leaf color (green, golden, tri-color or pur­ple) and fla­vor (“sage” fla­vor, pineap­ple, or grape).
  • Oregano (Ori­g­anum vul­gare)
  • Mar­jo­ram (Ori­g­anum majo­rana)
  • Thyme (Thymus spp.): Some thymes, includ­ing many of those sold for orna­men­tal ground­cover use (such as T. ser­pi­phyl­lum) are only slightly scented or not at all. The culi­nary bush forms gen­er­ally have more scent and fla­vor, and they come in a wide range, includ­ing lemon and lime. They also tend to be more tol­er­ant of dry conditions.
  • Laven­der (Lavan­dula spp.): There are sev­eral laven­der species, as well as plenty of hybrids and vari­eties. All are at least some­what drought tol­er­ant. Some extremely so.
  • dryland-herbs_rose-geranium Scented gera­ni­ums (Pelargo­nium spp.): Take your pick of rose, apple, cin­na­mon, nut­meg, pineap­ple, lemon, lime, apri­cot and others.
  • Worm­wood (Artemisia spp.)
  • Mex­i­can oregano (Lip­pia grave­olens)
  • Fen­nel (Foenicu­lum vul­gare): Beau­ti­ful and tasty plants, but they’re con­sid­ered inva­sive in many loca­tions (includ­ing the entire Cal­i­for­nia floris­tic province). Research before you plant! There’s an attrac­tive bronze ver­sion that’s reputed to be less inva­sive. Still, I wouln’t plant it if reg­u­lar fen­nel is a prob­lem in your area.
  • Nas­tur­tium (Tropae­olum majus): With edi­ble, pep­pery leaves and flow­ers, some peo­ple con­sider this an herb. As with fen­nel, above, it can be inva­sive. Don’t plant it if it could escape. (Many of the moister hill­sides here in San Diego are cov­ered with the stuff.)
  • Lemon grass, both West-Indian (Cym­bo­pogon cit­ra­tus) and East-Indian (C. flex­u­o­sus): Sources tell you these plants like water, but I’ve found that they don’t mind going dry occa­sion­ally, espe­cially if they’re given some shade.

dryland-herbs_sweet-marjoram

Good eats!

May 24 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • • • • | 5 Comments »