Friday, May 19, 2006
Want to know herbs? Take a drive
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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I've been hitting myself "upside the head" as Daddy used to say. All these years I've been hearing great things about Buffalo Springs Herb Farm in Raphine and I've never been. I could've saved myself so much garden grief if I had gone years ago.
Martha Brown, a Roanoke herb gardener, and I made the easy hour and a half trip up 81 for a tour of the gardens, a short herb class, a delicious herby lunch and, of course, some plant purchases.
Buffalo Springs is the home and business and passion of Don Haynie and Tom Hamlin. Nestled in rolling hills and open to the public since 1991, it is a magnet for gardeners, artists and cooks.
I've always had a rosemary bush and a little basil in the summer, but somehow thought herb gardens were different from other gardens. Maybe more formal and controlled and colonial. I hadn't realized how huge the herb category is.
Although you can grow herbs for culinary and medicinal use, there are plenty to choose from for showy foliage, blooms and fragrance. Haynie's entertaining one-hour talk about "Herbs in the Landscape" was packed with practical tips and great ideas. It opened my mind to the possibilities of adding herbs to mixed borders and containers and using them to solve garden problems.
"Herbs are the only plants that will repay you for all your weeding and work," Haynie says. Lemon thyme makes a great ground cover and a yummy roast chicken.
His garden features more varieties of thyme than I've ever dreamed of. There is the tiny thymus minus between the stepping stones. Great swaths of the lemon thyme soften the straight edges of borders and spill over rock walls. Thyme is a low maintenance herb that thrives in hot, dry locations.
Keeping a shady, damp mint patch thriving is rarely a problem. In fact, keeping it under control has always been my worry. Haynie swears if you cut it and use it often you can keep it from being such a barbarian invader. He recommends cutting it back by half in mid-June or just before it blooms. But don't throw those cuttings away when a mint infusion is so easy.
Rinse one part mint and submerge in two parts near-boiling water. Remove from the heat and let it sit for a few hours. Then squeeze the mint to get as much flavor as you can. The pale green infusion can be used in your bath or as a hair rinse. You can freeze it in ice cube trays to enjoy in a cup of tea next winter when you're browsing the plant catalogues.
Who hasn't had the South-of-France lavender vision for their back yard? Glowing purple and clouds of dreamy fragrance wafting in the bedroom window? All I've ever managed were ragged mounds that lasted a year or two. With Haynie's advice I have high hopes for the steep bank I plan to blanket in purple.
He says lavender must have good drainage. Trying to break up clay soil with peat moss is only a temporary fix. Mix liberal amounts of gypsum into the soil. Lavender must have lime. Its roots feed close to the surface, so I need to sprinkle pellitized lime around the plants in March and right after bloom time. I realized I had broken all the bold-face commandments when he said, "Do not mulch with anything but sand, gravel or pine straw. No hardwood mulch." No wonder my lavender dreams had never come true.
The biggest headline of the day was, with the exception of basil and parsley, deer don't like herbs. If you have a deer problem, catmint seems to be the magic herb. After deer ate the roses down to the ground at Buffalo Springs, Haynie and Hamlin wove wide borders of catmint under the bushes and around the garden. The deer won't come near it and the roses are gorgeous.
Catmint's Latin name is nepeta. One variety, "Six Hills Giant," grows to 24 inches and another, "Faassenii," is about half that height. A perennial with soft blue flowers that bloom in May, it will sprout again in the fall if you clip it back in June. It takes sun or partial shade and is not anywhere near as peculiar about soil as the lavenders. What more can you ask?
In just an hour I took pages of notes. You can find directions and class info at buffaloherbs.com. Even a quick stroll around the gardens will fill you with ideas.
Martha also told me about two Roanoke herb groups. If you're interested, call Mary Johnson at 380-2978.
Martha's group, the Roanoke Valley Unit of the Herb Society of America, is having a program Sunday at 2 p.m. You'll learn all about the 2006 Herb of the Year, the scented pelargonium. It's $2 for nonmembers at the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs on Colonial Avenue. You can e-mail Martha at brownmj@cox.net for details.
Every week I discover more cool garden events, classes and workshops in the area. I can't include everything, but I'd like to end each column with a few items of interest. Please e-mail me, libbaw@cox.net, about your event. Don't forget to include all your contact info.
The hot tip this week is the Rockbridge Master Gardeners Tour on Saturday. It's $5 per person and runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; five gardens in the Lexington area. Call (540) 463-4734 for details.
