March 8, 2010
Hidden Herbs In The Garden Centre

Looking Forward To Cheery Blossom
I’ve been busy with Herb Society web updates and editing and circulating their new newsletter Herbal Delights, so I haven’t had much time to blog recently. I have been in the garden and garden centres though and this weekend with the help of my trustee side kick Simon and Robin, I’ve managed to get in to the garden, begin the pruning and clearing and get some new plants to put in. He likes eating any uncovered grubs and worms as I dig, the robin that is not Simon lol! Robin has been visiting our garden for a couple of years now, he’s a little camera shy, but I’ll try to get a photo of him as soon as I can so you can see the cheeky little chap, he expressed an interest in the bird house last week, its lay vacant for about 5 years, so fingers crossed, the bird house may get its first tennant!
Last weekend I picked up an apple tree and a cherry tree (why do I keep typing cheery lol!?), the intention is that in a couple of years time we’ll be sorting out the side of the front garden having a small wall around it and planting a couple of fruit trees in their and herbs of course. The apple is a braeburn, one of Simon’s favourites and the cherry is for me YUM! But I also thought in years to come I’ll be able to use the flowers of both to make flower waters, nothing like thinking ahead huh? The trees were less than £4 each and came from Aldi, how well they’ll do it remains to be seen, but for now each have buds and I’m dreaming of sprinb blossom and maybe fruit later in the year
I thought I’d blog a little about something I’m always mentioning to folk when I give talks and demos on herbs and it ties in with the new herbs I’ve just added as well. This weekend I went to the local garden centre and they had a nice display of Grow Your Own herbs, but all they had were Sage, Chives, Mint, Rosemary, Lavender and a few of the other ’standard’ herbs. All super if you’re starting your herb garden from scratch or you need to replace an old plant that is too woody or has succumbed to winter frosts, but what hope is there for the herb grower who wants to try something different?
Well lots actually, if you look beyond the small ’herb’ section that most garden centres seem to have these days, you’ll find even more herbs diguised as other things, for instance in the wild flower section I found Meadow Clary (Salvia pratensis), Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare), Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata), Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), Cowslip (Primula veris) and Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis) all of which have a culinary or medicinal use, Simon had to restrain me when two ladies were commenting loudly about the garden centre selling weeds!!! Over in the shrubs section I picked up a Wintergreen (Gaultheria fragrantissima) and a Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) and in the perennials I found Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Bistort (Persicaria bistorta), Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis), Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum commutatum) and an Orris Root plant (Iris florentina). If your local garden centre has a pond/bog plants section, mosey on over there to pick up gems such as Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), Calamus Root aka Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus), Bogbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) and Water Mint (Mentha aquatica).
There are many others that you can find, if you know what to look for, if you’re new a good start is to take along a pocket herbal that lists latin names, for some reason most of the perennial herbs in garden centres are referred to by their Latin names for example if you want Lungwort, look for the name Pulmonaria. With a good guide you can find a wealth of herbs beyond the 12 or so standards that they display in the herb section. You just have to know what it is your looking for, I’ve picked up some real gems this way, maybe we should petition the garden centres to put all the herbs together and stop dotting things about without a clear herbal identity? That said, I like going on voyages on herbal discovery, you never know what you’ll find, it really does help if you know the latin names of the herbs though, if you can’t remember them all (and who can?) learn a few each season and see if you can spot them in the garden centres.
Don’t forget you’ll also find things like Hawthorn and Crampbark (Viburnum opulus) in the shrub and hedging sections, and Calendula, Borage, Lovage, Meadowsweet, Catnip, Comfrey and Chamomile in with the seeds, don’t forget to look in the perennial flower and vegetable seeds as well as the herb seeds because the same thing happens with seeds as happens with plants. There are more herbs in the garden centre than the novice would first think, so if you haven’t got time to get to a specialist herb nursery, give your local garden centre a look and make time to have a proper browse.

















