By Peggy Riccio
I love being able to step out into the garden and snip fresh herbs whenever I need them. Yesterday, I was making ham and bean stew in the crockpot. I was inspired to add thyme so I cut off a few sprigs from the thyme growing in the front of the house. I looked around and snipped even more herbs: cutting celery, oregano, sage, and rosemary. Except for the cutting celery, these are perennial herbs that should be in everyone’s garden. They can be tucked in the ornamental bed just like any other perennial plant. In the spring, you can purchase the small plants from a nursery or you can ask a friend for a cutting or division. Once you have them in your garden, you can enjoy them year-round and nothing will bother them, not even deer.
Cutting Celery
Botanically speaking, the cutting celery is a biennial. It puts its energy into foliage the first year and then into flowering and setting seed the next year. In my Zone 7 garden, I can harvest the foliage any time so it acts like a perennial. I am sure it is because the seed drops, germinates, and produces new plants each year. I always grow it in one place, under the dappled shade of a tree and where a tiny stream runs through after it rains. This gives the celery enough moisture. The plant is smaller with thinner stems than store-bought stalk celery (it is the center plant in the bowl in the photo). The taste is like stalk celery but with a peppery, pungent bite. It can be used fresh in a salad, in sandwiches, or sautéed with onions and carrots, which is what I did for the bean stew.
Thyme
Thyme is a perennial shrub with very small leaves (in upper left quadrant in the bowl). It is only about six inches tall, making it a good groundcover. Because the thin wiry stems root easily, it is a great plant to have in order to cut and root stems in the spring to place in containers with summer annuals for the “spiller” effect. Culinary thyme remains green and above ground all winter long. It can be harvested and used in the kitchen any time of the year. There are variegated forms of thyme as well as flavored thymes such as coconut, lemon, and spicy orange. Thyme prefers full sun and well-drained soil. The leaves can be used fresh or dried.
Oregano
Oregano is an herbaceous perennial (in bottom part of bowl). It grows back every spring, reaches about a foot tall, flowers, and then dies back in the fall. Usually though with our mild winters, there are green leaves at the base year-round. In the early spring I cut back the dead flower stalks and remove the debris so fresh new growth can push through. Mine is in full sun and well-drained soil. Oregano is a great plant to have in the garden for the culinary use as well as the flowers. The flowers are small but attract beneficial insects and pollinators. Oregano leaves can be used fresh or dried and we use them for the bean stew, pizza, pasta sauce, poultry rub, and stuffing.
Sage
Sage is a woody shrub, about one to two feet tall. There are many types of sage but if you want to make sure you are purchasing culinary sage, look for Salvia officinalis with grey green leaves. Sage prefers full sun and well-drained soil. The leaves can be used fresh or dried for many dishes such as poultry rub, sausage, stuffing, and root vegetables. You can cut just a few leaves as you need them since they are pungent (top of the bowl).
Rosemary
I have the ‘Arp’ rosemary plant in full sun, on the southern side of the house in well drained soil. It grows so well I trim it back every year to keep it in proportion to the rest of the front garden. Rosemary blooms in the cool months and the purple/blue flowers are edible. The leaves are so flavorful you do not need many of them and they can be used fresh or dried. This plant is easy to propagate by stem cuttings or layering. Rosemary is versatile because the stems or branches can be used as well as the foliage and flowers. Line a platter with branches and then put a roast on top or use them as stirrers in drinks. The leaves can be used in pasta sauce, yeast breads like focaccia, roasted potatoes, poultry rub, and rosemary butter for vegetables (the cuttings are on the right side of the bowl).
This year as you add annuals and flowers to your garden beds, don’t forget to invest in perennial herbs for year round flavor.
Peggy Riccio is the owner of pegplant.com, an online resource for gardening in the Washington, DC, metro area; president of the Potomac Unit, Herb Society of America; regional director of GardenComm, a professional association of garden communicators; and is the blog administrator for the National Garden Clubs, Inc.
Long before humans roamed the forests, fairies are said to have taken up residence in the cavities of trees, forming fairy houses where they took refuge. Dating back to the Middle Ages, fairy folklore says that these little beings possess supernatural powers. 
The first step to creating a magical miniature garden is to dream up what you want the garden to be. A good way to do that is to start with a theme. Just like when you throw a party, knowing the theme allows you to plan and design the garden better.
For your cottage garden, you can’t use large flowering plants like foxglove or larkspur as you’d find in a human-sized landscape, but you can bring flowers to your Lilliputian paradise with small blooming plants like Erodium spp. (stork’s bill, heron’s bill) and miniature roses (Rosa sp.). Many trailing herbs, such as the aptly named ‘Elfin’ thyme, also flower in the spring. Polka Dot Plant (Hypoestes) adds color to your fairy garden all year long.
The way to put life into your fairy garden is to add some action. Set the stage in your fairy garden by creating the illusion that something is going on. The secret is to give the viewer the “idea” of movement. What creates that illusion is how the fairy relates to her (or his) environment.
Choose a container with drainage holes that has enough space to arrange your planned scene and is at least eight inches deep. Use a high-quality potting soil. When choosing plants, ensure all of them are either full sun or shade. 
Have you ever said to yourself or others, “My garden is my therapy?” If you have noticed that you feel more relaxed and even rejuvenated after imbibing the beauty, fragrance, and even hard work in your garden, you are not alone! Gardening provides physical exercise, as well as a rewarding intellectual and emotional connection. When recognized on a personal level, it is not a stretch to see how people in a wide variety of care environments who are facing diverse personal challenges can benefit from professionally facilitated horticultural experiences as well.
The profession of horticultural therapy (HT) was formalized in the early 1970s, though people have sought out gardens and gardening activities for respite and health recovery well before then. The practice of horticultural therapy involves a plant-based activity, a horticultural therapist, client(s), and identified treatment goals and objectives. Either in a group or as individuals, clients participate in outdoor or indoor plant-based activities designed to address their particular health or wellness needs. For example, patients in a rehabilitation hospital can work on standing tolerance, dynamic balance, and coordination by transplanting tea herbs into a planter raised to a comfortable standing height. Later in the season, the patients are rewarded with familiar fragrances as they harvest the herbs to make herb teas and learn about the roles relaxation and stress management play in their recovery.
In another example, adults with brain injuries focus on pre-vocational skills, such as following increasingly complex directions, organizing their work space, and social skills needed for interacting appropriately with coworkers and supervisors, all while growing plants for a sale. They could be growing any plants for sale, but the sensory stimulation from herb plants increases motivation and inspires conversation with customers during the plant sale. I have noticed that HT sessions are often so enjoyable, even with focus and hard work, that participants can feel like they are taking a break from therapy. Yet, they realized real progress towards their goals and objectives. 
HT programs are found in diverse organizations addressing a wide range of physical, social, emotional, vocational, and wellness needs for people of all ages. I’ve always said, “If you have seen one horticultural therapy program, you have seen ONE horticultural therapy program!” The flexibility of this field means that programs are unique and creatively designed to fit lots of different organizations–and not all are health care. Most focus on some type of improvement, recovery, or function maintenance ultimately for improved independence and quality of life. Quite often, horticultural therapists co-treat with other clinicians, such as recreation or occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, and vocational rehabilitation counselors. 
The other by-product of horticultural therapy programs is an environment with lots of plants! Imagine the impact plants have on senior living facilities, psychiatric hospitals, correction and juvenile detention facilities, veterans hospitals, and community support programs for people coping with grief, chronic illness, or cancer. When walking by a “lemon” garden, filled with lemon verbena, lemongrass, lemon basil, lemon thyme, lemon 
Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted March 9, 2018. We hope it inspires you as you plan your spring gardens!
No room to garden? Not a problem. Find a large container and plant your herbs or vegetables in that. Many nurseries make that easy by selling herbs and vegetables already growing in large containers. There is something uniquely satisfying about picking vegetables and herbs that you have grown yourself.
Ginger, 
Ginger is a very old spice. The Indians and the Chinese used ginger as a medicine over 5000 years ago to treat a variety of ailments (Bode, 2011). It was also used to flavor foods long before history was even recorded. The Greeks and the Romans introduced ginger to Europe and the Mediterranean area by way of the Arab traders. It became an important spice in Europe until the fall of the Roman Empire. When the Arabs re-established trade routes after the fall, ginger found its way back into European apothecaries and kitchens. It is said that one pound of ginger cost the same as one sheep in the 13th and 14
Today, growing culinary ginger is not limited to the hot, humid areas of Southeast Asia and India as it was long ago. Anyone living in southern growing areas (USDA Hardiness Zones 8 – 12) can grow it as a perennial. In colder areas, it can be grown in pots and brought indoors for the winter or grown in the ground, but dug up before frost and potted up for overwintering indoors in a cool location. It prefers a rich, moist soil, good drainage, and shade in the south, but full sun in the north. If starting plants from store-bought ginger rhizomes, the rhizome should be first soaked in water to remove any growth retardant that may have been used. Each rhizome can be cut into sections with at least two eyes and planted in soil. Harvest the rhizomes when the leaves begin to fade. 
using ginger in some form: fresh, ground, crystallized, pickled, preserved, or dried. 
Unfortunately for ginger, there is a dark side to its history. 
In a recent GreenBridges™
Fast forward to this past spring. When the weather started warming up, I noticed more pollinators busy in the garden collecting nectar from the early blooming plants. THEN, I noticed the number of butterflies that were enjoying my garden. Oh my gosh, for several weeks, I would go out into the garden and literally feel like I was in a butterfly house at a botanical garden! The butterflies swarmed around me as I worked in the beds. It made my heart so happy! I wish I had made a video, but I was living in the moment. There were different swallowtails, gulf fritillaries, skippers, hairstreaks, Eastern tailed-blues, sulfurs, American painted ladies, viceroys, buckeyes, and some I did not recognize. I enjoyed their presence immensely. Even though that period was totally glorious, I still have good numbers of the winged beauties visiting daily. 
My granddaughter and I enjoyed raising swallowtail and gulf fritillary caterpillars this summer. We released 47 swallowtails and nine fritillaries. The swallowtails slowed down after having eaten every morsel of parsley, dill, and fennel in my garden. I saw more fritillaries at that time of the season as they voraciously attacked the passionvine. By the end of the summer, those vines were leafless, but that’s fine with me. I know they will be back next year to provide for the new generations.
Though just about over, this has been a spectacular gardening season. I truly believe that each of us can make a difference right where we are. The effort is so worth it!
Olbrich Botanical Gardens is a 16-acre, free admission public garden in Madison, Wisconsin, in the heart of the ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk people. The Ho-Chunk, or “People of the Sacred Voice” historically lived in southern Wisconsin, from the far southwestern corner of the state along the Mississippi River nearly up to Green Bay. This is fertile land with rolling hills and scenic bluffs where the Ho-Chunk lived in permanent villages. In fact, their oral tradition simply states, “We have always been here.” 
Especially in Olbrich’s Herb Garden, it’s vitally important that we grow, show, and interpret plants that all types of people identify with. Herb lovers know that edible plants can act as a universal language, uniting people and making them feel at home across cultural borders. In this spirit, the Herb Garden has hosted many creative collaborative gardens over the years. Most recently, an Indian-style garden created with owners of an Ayurvedic spa oozed tropical flair with ginger and turmeric, eggplant, bitter melon, and elephant ears. 
We also wanted to highlight the endangered Ho-Chunk language, since there are only 200 fluent speakers and only 50 are the older people who grew up speaking Ho-Chunk. At Olbrich, we are lucky to have on our staff Rita Peters, a 24-year-old college student of Ho-Chunk and Menomonee descent. Rita, known as Xoropasaignga (hodo-pa-SIGN-ga) or Bald Eagle Woman, is at the heart of the Indigenous Garden. She does everything from sowing seeds and harvesting sweetgrass to developing events and educational seminars. Rita worked with her aunt, a language apprentice, to create bilingual signage that even links to a YouTube recording of the words being spoken aloud. 
As winter approached, we carefully saved seeds for the Indigenous Garden in 2022. Our milkweed soup day in early June attracted more than 330 guests! This year we are extending the Garden’s reach by collaborating with Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison, the biggest employer of Indigenous people in our area. We hope that partnerships like these will create an ever-growing network as Olbrich continues to focus our efforts on ensuring that everyone feels at home in these beautiful gardens here in Dejope. 
Use equal parts of water or broth and milkweed flower buds. You can add other vegetables (green beans, corn, carrots) or ham/bacon. Bring broth to a boil and add milkweed or other veggies. Simmer for 30-40 minutes until milkweed and veggies are tender.
The ancient origins of the word Lammas comes from the Old English 
There is still an ancient county fair held in Ballycastle Ireland called the Auld Lammas Fair. This fair is held every year on the last Monday and Tuesday of August and is associated with the Lammas harvest festival. It has taken place for nearly 400 years, and it dates back to the 17th century. Interestingly enough, this timing is familiar to us. So many of our own county fairs are held during this time, and it is lovely to think that we are continuing these ancient celebrations from a time when legend and magic blended with everyday life well into our own time. A brief video of the fair can be found here: 
However you celebrate it this year, Lammas or Lughnasadh begins on the first of August, falling halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. I celebrate this day as a harvest celebration, sometimes by myself and sometimes with my neighbors. It is always such a beautiful time of year. The first soft fruits and vegetables have begun to ripen and the trees are heavily laden with lavish canopies of pears, plums, apples, and more. It is high summer and the days are slowly beginning to shorten, but the warm evening air is always filled with such sweet garden scents and the coming promise of autumn’s abundance. Everywhere you turn or step, the hum of honeybees and other pollinators surrounds you. At night, all of the fireflies begin to dance around, lighting up the sky and making even the oldest of us long to catch a bit of that light for a minute in a glass mason jar, the same way we did when we were children.
Centuries ago, I would be relying on my community to help feed my family in a time when my harvest failed, but with supermarkets to rely upon we live with a false sense of security about our food. That being said, climate change and its hazardous impact upon our food system is no longer an abstract concept. Extremes in temperatures, drought, and wind patterns are forcing us to study the phenology of our personal and public landscapes so that we can make decisions based upon an almost unknown and uncertain future.
Whether you’re a solitary gardener or a community gardener, we are all connected through the soil, sunshine, wind, and rain. We are all connected through our dreams of our beautiful gardens, large or small. We all depend on the same resources and they are not infinite. I feel compelled to take a moment today to give thanks for the harvest, and to remember those who have gone before us, who have traditionally worked the land and brought forth its abundance for our pleasure.
As a Virginia home gardener and herb enthusiast, I grow many of my culinary herbs from seed at the beginning of the summer and I purchase a few tropicals. I have my staples, simple names such as pineapple sage, lemongrass, lemon verbena, basil, dill, cilantro, and parsley. Of course, the garden is littered with the perennials: sage, lavender, rosemary, oregano, knot marjoram, thyme, germander, yarrow, chives, and lovage. All of them have stories; their useful properties have been known for generations.
Some of the well-known stories involve better rosemary plants. The cold-hardy ‘Arp’ cultivar was discovered by Madalene Hill, who managed Hilltop Herb Farm in Texas. While visiting family in Arp, Texas, she noticed a robust rosemary plant blooming in January and took cuttings. Years later, Cyrus Hyde, owner of New Jersey herb nursery Well-Sweep Herb Farm, noticed a sport, a naturally occurring mutation, on one of his ‘Arp’ plants. He propagated the sport, which was more compact with greener foliage, and named it ‘Madelene Hill’. Today, ‘Arp’ and ‘Madelene Hill’, also known as ‘Hill Hardy’, are some of the most cold hardy rosemary plants on the market. 
Jim Westerfield, owner of an Illinois bed and breakfast, was an amateur breeder who loved mints. By cross pollinating mint varieties, he produced more than 50 hybrids with interesting names and flavors such as ‘Iced Hazelnut’,‘Jessie’s Sweet Pear’,‘Marshmallow Mint’, and ‘Cotton Candy’. It took Jim seven years to produce one of the only patented mints, ‘Hillary’s Sweet Lemon Mint’, named after Hillary Rodham Clinton. His mints live on through trademarks and patents and are only available at Richters in Canada and Fragrant Fields in Missouri. 
Now, instead of serendipity playing a role, companies are intentionally breeding for “better” traits. Driving this is consumer demand of course, but in the world of culinary herbs, consumers can be just about anyone from field growers, hydroponic growers, grocery stores, nurseries, seed companies, gardeners, and non-gardeners who just want to buy a fresh basil plant for the kitchen counter. I talked with many seed companies, university researchers, and growers to learn what traits they were interested in and why. I learned who was focusing on certain herbs, which herbs have a lot of possibilities for our market, and new herb cultivars that will be available to the public. Join me in this behind-the-scenes look at efforts to improve your herb garden as well as expand your staples of plants. 
Basil,
Although named by the Greeks, basil originated in India 5,000 years ago. In India today, the herb is considered a sacred herb. Holy basil, 
From India, basil spread to Egypt, where the herb was used for embalming and has been found buried with the pharaohs. The herb then moved on to Rome and southern Europe, where the Romans fell in love with it. In Italy, basil was considered a sign of love. If young girls were seeking a suitor, they would place a pot of basil on their windowsill. If a potential suitor showed up with a sprig of basil, the girl would love him forever. 
Italy became the home of pesto, which basil has made famous. “Pesto was created by the people of Genoa to highlight the flavor of their famous basil. Using a mortar and pestle, they combined simple ingredients to make one of the world’s most famous pasta sauces” (Blackman, 2010). The simple sauce contains only basil, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, and parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Pesto is still a very popular sauce for pasta or crackers, especially in the summer, when fresh basil is plentiful.
Basil, a sun-loving member of the mint family, is an annual herb that thrives in summer heat. In fact, it will languish if planted in the garden before temperatures reach a consistent 70 plus degrees. Frequent harvesting of the leaves before flowers appear prolongs its growing season. It can be propagated by seed or cuttings. However, it is very susceptible to downy mildew, which researchers are constantly trying to overcome by breeding more disease-resistant varieties. The new gene editing CRISPR technology may show a promising solution to this problem (Riccio, 2022).
Basil is not usually considered a medicinal herb, but it was used medicinally in the time of Hippocrates who prescribed it as a tonic for the heart and to treat vomiting and constipation. Pliny the Elder commented that it was good for lethargy and fainting spells, headaches, flatulence, and other digestive issues (Pliny, 1855). China and India have a long history of using basil as a medicinal herb as well.
So, do enjoy fresh basil this summer. Remember to dry some for the winter, freeze the leaves, or combine chopped leaves with water and freeze in an ice cube tray for later use. However, you should take careful consideration before putting basil on your windowsill lest you attract an unwanted suitor.
The Herb Society of America Blog 