
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990                   TAG: 9006180367
SECTION: HOMES                    PAGE: E1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE HOWER THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: SANTA ROSA, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

LET HERBS SPICE UP YOUR YARD

If you've ever considered landscaping with herbs, you're not alone. Horticulturist Bob Hornback says the idea was big with the Egyptians and Babylonians centuries ago.

In this century, the concept hit popularity peaks in the 1920s, in the Depression, in the late '40s, in the '60s and it's popular again.

Some fragrant herbs may be useful as deer and insect-repellants because "some animals and bugs find fragrant herbs annoying."

Landscape herbs should be chosen and grouped according to their light needs, water needs, soil drainage, soil type and size relationship as well as their colors, size, shape, characteristics and texture.

Robert Kourik, author of "Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally," wrote this advice:

"I try to place drought-loving herbs in groups. I prepare the soil with lots of sand or crushed rock (\ inch or smaller) for the drainage that so many herbs need. I fertilize with phosphate and potash, using almost no nitrogen, and water at a minimum with drip irrigation that is independent from the line for the vegetables. I have found that the flavor of herbs grown in sandy, rocky, dry soil is superior to that of herbs grown in fertile, loamy soil with plenty of water."

Among two versatile herbs are:

Roman chamomile - Sunset magazine calls this Chamaemelum nobile (Anthemis nobilis). This makes a lawn substitute if mowed or sheared occasionally. At first glance, however, it doesn't look like a lawn substitute because it is a soft-textured, spreading mat of bright green, small, aromatic leaves. Flower heads resemble small yellow buttons and some forms have daisy-like flower heads. It also is used between stepping stones, Sunset said, and when walked on it feels like luxurious carpeting.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) - An evergreen, rosemary endures hot sun, poor soil but needs good drainage.

The next time you go to a shopping center, look around and you may find rosemary used as an architectural plant. Low growing varieties are good ground and bank covers and taller varieties can be placed next to a structure to provide scale.

Hornback cautions that sometimes the better landscape herb is not necessarily the best flavoring herb for cooking.

John Adams, author of "Landscaping With Herbs," defines an herb as any plant you find useful, but Hornback limits that to plants that are fragrant or can be used in cooking.

Hornback warned that when using herbs for landscaping, some will die back in the winter and you should visualize what the herbs will look like at their worst as well as at their best.

One way around this, he suggested, is to plant herbs in containers. Then, as herbs come into season, they can be substituted for fading herbs.

by CNB