Healing properties and decorative spicy garden

21-06-2018

Tips and ideas

The idea to plant spicy gardens has been around for many years. It is easy to understand the reason, because aromatic plants since ancient times have been cultivated everywhere due to their healing properties. Information about their application is confirmed in treatises of different times and peoples. The ancient Greeks used anise, fennel, cumin, thyme, mint, coriander and other plants for various purposes. Of these, drugs, food, balms, fragrant oils, and incense were prepared. In the Middle Ages, such plants were necessarily grown in monasteries.

According to their purpose, pharmacist gardens, vegetable gardens with medicinal plants, vegetable gardens for growing herbs, vegetables and fruit crops for cooking were distinguished. In the pharmaceutical gardens grew fragrant herbs and flowers, fragrant and medicinal plants. These plants have always been associated with mysticism and symbolism.

At present, such gardens are also quite popular and useful: it is very convenient to have natural, fresh, with a lot of useful and healing properties of the plant.

Spices at their summer cottage (video)

What plants to choose

In addition to their healing properties, most aromatic plants are also distinguished by their decorative, colorful and ability to decorate any area. All plants can be divided into groups:

We also recommend to read: Basil: growing and careHow to grow celery at the cottage. Planting and caring for lavender in the open field. How to grow coriander at the cottage.

medicinal (chamomile, valerian, St. John's wort, mint, sage);
appetite suppressants (anise, basil, rosemary, cumin, thyme, parsley, coriander);
tea herbs (mint, oregano, lemon balm);
aromatic (lavender);
fragrant (echinacea, yarrow, anise lofant, monard).

Now there are many different decorative varieties of spicy herbs, different aroma and bright colors. We recommend to get acquainted with the material about the prairie garden.

And how to choose from the variety that suits you?

Thyme has a wonderful aroma, varied species and varieties. It is often considered an indispensable garden plant. It grows very quickly, forming a decorative and dense pillows, which in July are covered with purple inflorescences. All types of thyme are very good ground cover plants, they look very good in the foreground, and also as a filling plant. Some varieties of thyme are distinguished by golden, silvery or white-leafed foliage, which will add color to your garden.
The second plant is sage. It is a long-flowering, ornamental perennial with upright shoots, beautiful foliage and spike-shaped inflorescences. The most dense color of the canvas differs sage oakwood, whose varieties have different blue shades. The meadow sage blooms in the first half of summer with pink and blue-violet flowers. To decorate the borders are ideal hyssop medicinal bushes, and for the back tier - clary sage.
Fragrant ruta is a perennial shrub with curly foliage bluish-green and small yellow flowers. Good for borders, great response to haircuts.
A very branchy bush of oregano has pink-purple corymbose flowers that form a beautiful and bright spot during flowering.
With the wonderful aroma of the garde has an interesting color and thick foliage, which during flowering creates very bright and dense spots.
The echinacea purpurea is not particularly different, but it is famous for its medicinal properties and decorative effect, since it has a good bush structure and a long flowering time. Large echinacea inflorescences attract the attention of butterflies.
Anise lofant is not yet so popular in our gardens, but its dark green leaves, spike-like inflorescences of various colors create colorful compositions. Lofant highlights the essential oil, which is captured even at a great distance.
The decorative leafy plant is wormwood, which has a special smell and feathery foliage. Wormwood has different shapes and sizes (from 20 cm to 1.5 m). Openwork foliage has a variety of shades of silver-green and gray shades.
Basil - a representative of the family of mint herbs, used as seasoning in cooking. Fresh basil has a characteristic aroma and green leaves. But there is also an opal type of basil, distinguished by purple leaves. Basil is a strongly branched plant whose leaves are oblong-ovate.
Mustard salad or leaf - is a ripening annual cold-resistant plant with yellow small flowers, gathered in a spike inflorescence. Mustard leaves are consumed fresh for salads and as a side dish for meat dishes. They can also be canned, boiled and salted. Leaf mustard differs in anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties, "ability" to stimulate the appetite. It contains a lot of vitamins, ascorbic acid, rutin.
Cilantro or coriander is a herbaceous plant (annual), belongs to the umbrella family. The stem of the plant is bare and upright, reaching a height of 40-70 cm, with a branched upper part. The flowers are white or pink, small in size, arranged by umbrellas. The fruits are widely used as a spice for flavoring, fortification of fish and canned meat, pickles, cheese, sausages, bread. The leaves are used in salads, as well as seasoning for meat dishes and soups. It is also a great honey plant. Coriander is recommended to use in case of stomach and cold diseases.
Lemon mint, apiary, lemon balm is a herbaceous oil-bearing perennial plant. Its stem is branched, like rhizome. Leaves ovate, petiolate, opposite, pubescent. Mint is grown due to its oval leaves, which after grinding are characterized by a strongly pronounced lemon scent. As a spice, this plant is perfectly combined with different types of meat, game, mushroom dishes. Its fresh leaves are used in the preparation of soups, vegetables and sauces. Often, lemon balm is added to milk or cottage cheese to improve the smell. Melissa helps with indigestion, certain types of asthma, anemia, helps to improve metabolism, relieves insomnia and migraine, is indicated for general loss of strength. A curative alcohol tincture is made from lemon balm, and the juice is used to heal wounds.
Parsley is the most famous spicy crop, often growing in areas of our gardeners and gardeners. This is a small genus of plants. Petals have a yellow-green or white color with a reddish tinge at the base. Used parsley in dried, fresh and even salted form. Parsley leaves are a great addition to salads, root vegetables and leaves - to soups, side dishes, fish dishes. In medicine, parsley seeds are widely used, which are famous for stimulating, choleretic and diuretic actions.
Celery is a vegetable, spicy plant, which has more than 20 species. It has a dark green, shiny, long and fleshy leaves, brownish or yellow-white root vegetable. All parts of the plant are used in salads, drinks, first, second dishes and sauces. Stems help with kidney and gall bladder diseases. In medicine, it is used as a diuretic.
Perennial large herbaceous plants and shrubs are sage. In dried, as well as fresh, sage is used to create flavor and taste to dishes from fish, meat, poultry, gives a unique flavor to cakes, salads and tea. Sage is famous for its disinfecting and anti-inflammatory effects, often used for rinsing and compresses.

Flowerbed with spicy herbs (video)

Where to plant spices

The undoubted advantage of spicy herbs is their unpretentiousness and undemanding to care.

For the cultivation of good and strong plants in the first place you need to choose the lit place. Grass grows faster in the sun. Soils are preferred well-drained, light and loose. Do not use a large amount of organic matter. Perennial herbs may require fertilizing with complex fertilizer, as well as pruning in the fall. You can read about the material in the country style garden.

Annual and heat-loving plants are best grown with seedlings, and cold-resistant plants are sown in the ground.

Spicy herbs in the garden will look good in the gazebo, in the barbecue area, at the entrance, in places where people often stay. So it will be possible to inhale their healing aroma more often.

We grow a spicy garden (video)

Spices in landscape design

There are different options for planting spices in landscape design, one of which will undoubtedly be to the liking and possibilities of gardeners.

The classic version, which refers to the geometric layout. Ornamental gardens and gardens often to this option. Such a composition can be both the center of an ornamental garden and its small fragment. In such cases, the plot is divided into sectors: rhombuses, squares and triangles where plants are planted. In the center a small flowerbed will look good, hyssop or barberry will be suitable for borders.
Fragrant walkway. This is a somewhat modest option for organizing spicy herbs when plants are grown in small paving slots. To have such a path should be in the walking part of the garden, and, creating it, preference should be given to creeping and undersized species: carnation, grass, acene, alisum.
Mediterranean garden allows you to solve the landscape problem, if you choose plants of silver and blue colors. For such arrangement suitable lavender, sage, wormwood. The garden will be an excellent frame for a small pond with a fountain.
Portable garden is a great option if there is no place for spicy herbs on the plot. In this case, they can be landed in large containers or pots. Such a garden provides an opportunity to grow thermophilic crops (rosemary, lavender, marjoram), which are cleaned in warm rooms for the winter. Such container garden is very mobile, and this will give the opportunity to change the design of the garden every time.