Herbs as Landscape Plants
These days, we all want the plants we choose for our landscape to work as hard for us as we do for them! Plants that serve a purpose beyond beauty are gaining favor among homeowners and landscape designers. While herbs may have traditionally been confined to their own gardens, they make wonderful additions to ornamental landscape plantings. By including edibles, such as herbs, into your landscape, you add both beauty and flavor.
Herbs come in many colors, shapes and sizes. Some herbs have deep green foliage and others sport silver leaves. Some herbs bloom profusely, while others are grown primarily for their foliage. Some herbs are tiny and tender, while others are large and robust. Rosemary is the perfect example of the latter.
While rosemary may be a queen among the most favored culinary herbs, it’s also proven itself to be quite the sturdy landscape plant. It’s fragrant evergreen foliage and semi-woody stems combine to create a sturdy aromatic shrub. While there are many varieties of rosemary to choose from, one of our favorites is ‘Tuscan Blue’. This rosemary produces a profusion of small blue flowers sporadically throughout the year. Plants can grow up to 6-feet tall and almost as wide, making this quite the stunning landscape specimen shrub.
‘Tuscan Blue’ is attractive under even the toughest landscape conditions. Plants love a hot, full sun location and are very drought tolerant once established. In fact, the one condition they don’t tolerate well is wet soil, so be sure to provide good drainage. They’re perfect for placing in parts of the landscape that receive little care. Rosemary also make a good garden companion for roses, bulbs and other blooming perennials. Use it to create an evergreen backdrop in your perennial garden, or as a natural evergreen focal point or informal hedge. You can even plant ‘Tuscan Blue’ in large containers for a beautiful yet low-maintenance landscape feature.
April Featured Plants
Rosemary, Rosemarinus officinalis ‘Tuscan Blue’
Tecoma stans ‘Yellow Bells’ or ‘Esperanza’
Nerium oleander
Mexican Feather Grass, Nassella tenuissima (Formerly Stipa tenuissima)
Purple Leaf Plum, Prunus cerasifera ‘Krauter Vesuvius’
Mexican Bird of Paradise, Caesalpinia mexicana
Gray-leaf Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster glaucophyllus
Cleveland Sage, Salvia clevelandii
Acca sellowiana
