Classic Herb Garden Designs: Formal Garden, Centerpiece
Many classic English gardens choose to have a centerpiece as a focal point of the garden. Common centerpieces include fountains, sundials, or bird baths. If you want to have a centerpiece in your herb garden because you are following this classic design, I suggest you choose a tall growing herb, and let it be the only one of its kind in the garden, or allow the garden to be bordered by this herb as well.
For example, if you choose to plant lovage as your centerpiece (grows to about five or six feet tall), you can also use lovage to border your entire garden like a hedge or natural fence of plants. Placing an herb as your centerpiece makes the centerpiece quite useful as well. However, if you want to have a fountain, sundial, or birdbath, that's fine as these also make lovely centerpieces.
The rest of the formal garden is characterized by walkways, usually leading up to the centerpiece (imagine that the centerpiece is the sun and the walkways branch out like rays, at least four rays is common.) These walkways are a good size, usually large enough so that you can push a wheelbarrow through them without hitting any of the plants. Common walkways are made of sand, gravel, or brick.
The space between the walkways are where you plant your herbs. You can choose to plant your herbs right by the walkway (usually done when the walkways are bricks), or further section off the herbs into quadrants or geometric shapes (usually done when walkways are made of sand or gravel, and bricks are used to section off the different quadrants.)
Within the planting area, however, you have a free hand for which herbs you want to plant. The walkways and centerpieces already defined the formality of the garden. You can now let nature run a little wild within the plots of earth. You can combine flowering herbs with non-flowering ones, and tall herbs with shorter ones.
To make sure all your plants thrive, though, plant the short herbs closer to the edges to make sure that they get a good amount of sunlight. You may also want to place herbs of similar height next to each other. To ensure that your plants complement each other, go back to the tips discussed at the beginning of the chapter regarding color and leaf texture. Remember that each section can have its own color scheme of three colors each so don't feel limited!
