Hi, Katie here from the Wild Bunch, this time writing about herbs.
Although the botanical definition of a herb is ‘a plant with non-woody stems that dies back after seeding and flowering’ the word herb is more generally used to describe aromatic herbs that are useful in the home; culinary herbs, medicinal herbs and, in previous eras, strewing herbs. They can also be used in skin preparations and household cleaning products. As well as being useful and attractive plants, many are also good pollinator attractors that thrive in a range of growing conditions. The mediterranean herbs, such as rosemary, savory, thyme, lavender, oregano and sage thrive in sunshine with gritty, well drained soils making them especially good plants to grow in our hotter, dryer summers. Other herbs, such as chives, mints and umbellifers (dill, fennel, parsley, lovage, coriander, carraway are some examples) prefer moister conditions with some shade. They are generally easy to grow and even those without a garden can have a small selection of herbs on their window sill, which of course can be purchased from a supermarket although these tend not to live for very long- dividing the plants up and placing into larger pots should ensure a longer life although there is only so much room on a windowsill!
For those with gardens, a larger range of plants and larger-sized plants can be grown in pots or directly into the soil. There are many varieties of most of the common herbs such as chocolate mint, ginger rosemary, pineapple sage and lemon thyme. The mediterranean-type herbs have certainly thrived in my garden in this year’s hot dry summer and the lavender and oregano flowers have been swarming with a wide variety of insects. Earlier in the year the rosemary flowers also attracted pollinators, while in my local community garden I was delighted to see the range of different hoverflies attracted to the fennel flowers.
So not only are herb flowers abuzz with insects but the plants also provide tasty additions to meals! As herbs can be quite expensive to buy in the shops it makes sense to grow a selection.
The Wild Bunch is open to anyone who is interested in gardening for wildlife in our private gardens and shared local green spaces. Our next meeting is on Thursday 21st August from 1.30pm to 3pm and we’ll be pond dipping at Welshmill with Wild Buncher Jo. Book free tickets at https://bit.ly/wild-bunch-pond-dip.
