The Herb Garden Feature Article
Exploring the Five Senses Through Herbs
In this feature article, Linnaeus Gardener Jane Baker interviews Allison Warning, Herb Garden Curator. Allison's responses are in bold.
is especially pleasing to the eye.
Jane: I’d like to help our readers enjoy the Herb Garden through as many senses as possible. Let’s start out with an obvious one – the sense of smell. What herb comes to mind first if you want one that is delightfully fragrant?
Allison: The ones that are most pronounced would be rosemary, then lavender.
And what others appeal to your sense of smell?
Basil smells great. They all do – thyme exudes a lovely fragrance as soon as you cut it. I’d include lemon balm or any other lemon-scented herb.
What about one that has an unpleasant smell? Are there any of those in our Herb Garden?
That depends on personal tastes – one gardener thinks one of our rosemary plants smells like turpentine. Citronella isn’t pleasant particularly. Some have very little fragrance, but we have no skunk herbs in our garden.
Oh yes, there’s chocolate-scented daisy. In the morning breeze it smells of chocolate, but it doesn’t taste like chocolate. There are scented geraniums too; the lemon is the most pronounced. Of all the scents in the garden, lemon is the easiest to recognize and is true to its name.
What’s the best way to enhance the natural smell of an herb?
Crush the leaves to allow the oils to come out. You can do that by hand as you stroll through the garden.
Herbs wilt and lose their aroma after they’re harvested. How should we preserve them to enjoy their fragrance for a longer time?
The only way to enjoy the fragrance of an herb long term is to buy the oils. People have learned how to extract the oils and package them as essential oils. These oils are added to dried herbs (like roses) for potpourri.
Flavor is different. You can maintain the flavor. To maintain flavor (and some slight scents), dry herbs and keep them in an airtight container out of direct sunlight. Dry them in bunches hanging upside down, laid out flat, in a very low oven, or in the microwave. When I trim my growing herbs, I lay the trimmings out on a tray and let them dry for at least a week. Then I store the dried herbs in zipper bags.
Freeze herbs in ice cubs for use in drinks. Edible flowers are great to use that way. There is a list of edible flowers in the Herb Book inside the Barn. Visitors are welcome to browse through the book.
Taste
Okay, let’s move on to the sense of taste; that one ought to be easy too. Lots of herbs are considered culinary necessities by good chefs. Which ones do we have in our Herb Garden?
We have what I consider the basics: thyme, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, and basil.
In June, we did a demonstration on how to make basic pesto, and how to make herb butter. Herb butter can be used anywhere you would use a pat of butter. You can freeze it in plastic wrap and then slice off what you need. It’ll keep for about six months. We also tasted pestos and an herb butter with rose petals that would go with sweet bread like cranberry bread.
I know that many decaffeinated teas are made from herbs; do we have some of those?
Yes. We have all the mints and you can use lots of others herbs for teas. We have chamomile, scented geraniums, lemon balm, lemon grass, and bee balm that can be used to make herbal tea.
How are they preserved and prepared for making tea?
Drying for teas is just the same as drying for cooking.
We have edible flowers and medicinal flowers. Echinacea is one; we have coconut lime. Echinacea (coneflower) is one of the plants named by our garden’s namesake, Carl Linnaeus. He called it Rudbeckia purpurea to honor his professor Rudbek. That information is in the herb book. There’s lots more in the book - history and folklore too.
The Sense of Touch
Lamb's Ear
Now I have a more difficult sense to explore. What herbs appeal to the sense of touch?
Lambs Ear. It’s so soft and comfy that Native Americans used it to line their moccasins and to dress a wound. Cuban oregano is real soft too.
All of our Linnaeus Gardens are beautiful to look at. What herbs do you find especially pleasing to the eye?
One of my favorite plants is the Mexican lavender. It looks like a little beard in a lamb’s ear. Right now our cat mint is blooming and beautiful. (See picture)
Sound
Here’s a hard one; can you connect any of the herbs with a distinctive sound?
Grasses – like lemon grass – make pleasant sounds in the breeze. White sage is a cleansing herb used by Native Americans and the swishing of the plant in the air was part of the cleansing.
And more...
I guess we’ve covered the sensory appreciation of the garden you care for; what else would you like us to know about “your” garden and the care you give it?
Like all of the Linnaeus Gardens, the Herb Garden is always changing. One of the neat things is, we can kind of control what they do. We deadhead so they last longer. Their job is to produce seeds and die. We manipulate and sometimes let an herb bloom, other times we keep it from blooming. Basil is an example; we don’t let it bloom so it will produce leaves longer. Cilantro can’t be manipulated or forced to reseed; you need to keep putting in more seeds to maintain a continual cilantro harvest.
2008 Curator Mary Stilwell admires bee balm, an herb used to make a
calming tea, planted in one of the several raised beds of the Herb Garden.
This garden of raised beds allows me to spend more time and be more active in the garden despite my movement limitations due to multiple sclerosis. I wouldn’t be able to work on hands and knees in the ground level planting and rough terrain of the Boulder Garden. The Herb Garden is just right for me and allows me to help prove that MS doesn’t have to stop an active life.
Thanks, Allison, for sharing your gardening knowledge, and thanks for the enthusiastic tender loving care you give to our Herb Garden.
By Jane Baker
Photos by Marc Schreiber
