By Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 06/18/2025

Culinary herbs have fascinated and fulfilled my senses through the decades, the way airy globe-shaped clusters of dill flowers seem to frolic in a light breeze, the clean camphor aroma sensed from brushing against a stand of rosemary, or the surprising stack of white-colored flowers peeking through long-stemmed oregano. I do value outstanding flavor enhancement that herbs bring by helping use less salt, fat and sugar in our diets, a practice that follows health and nutrition programs offered through our Family and Community Health Agent Flora Williams. Flora hosts Cooking Well for Healthy Blood Pressure, offering interactive sessions including cooking with spices and herbs. To find out more and check on the offerings on our calendar, browse online: brazos.agrilife.org/events.

Landscaping with plants like Basil

While I enjoy including herbs in my daily meals, I also want to remind our readers of the benefits of adding herbs as an accent to the landscape. There is a gardening trend referred to as edible landscaping, a practice that brings a unique approach to garden design. Treating herbs as you would ornamental plants in a garden design has advantages. Herbs come in various heights, leaf texture, and leaf and flower color. Several varieties that I will focus on include basil, variegated thyme and oregano.

Basil (botanical name Ocimum basilicum) is a semi-woody annual used for its aromatic leaves as a foundation for pesto or to spice up your pizza. Cultivars can be bold in stature and flavor, and exhibit large, sweet anise-flavored leaves measuring 3-inches long by 2-inches wide. Most of these types are generically named with titles like Sweet or Green-leaf basil, and the preferred of the large-leaved varieties is one named ‘Genovese’, a tad stronger in flavor than Sweet. Bees and other pollinators are attracted to the wands of flowers and depending on the varietal flowers vary in color from white to bright purple. One outstanding in its field (pun intended) of the Genovese types is ‘Cardinal’, offering clustered deep purple flowers that form a bouquet and draw your eye to the landscape. Consider height as some of the basil’s previously described provide a canopy up to 2 feet tall. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a small-leaved, uniform and compact basil ‘Boxwood’, coming in at 10 inches in height and more appropriate in the edible landscape as a garden border.

Regarding landscape design, you may consider mixing up your color palette with dark purple-leaved varieties. ‘Purple Ruffles’ offers an almost black frilly skirt with extremely wavy margins on large, pointed leaves and standing at attention at 1.5 feet tall. ‘Purple Ruffles’ has a fragrance and flavor stronger than Sweet Basil. ‘Petra Dark Red’ offers large, glossy, dark purple-red and a bit more tame leaves (margins are less crenulate) with a very faint undercoating of pale green and mild, sweet taste. This basil canopy also reaches 1.5 feet. Letting this plant form flower stalks add to the contrast, with deep, purple-colored wands dancing in the wind.

Keeping up with the thymes

Thyme is an evergreen sub-shrub, some varieties raising up to 20-inches while others grow in a creeping, mat-forming habit. Leaves are very small, typically no more than one-eighth inch wide with numerous oil glands that offer a pleasingly pungent smell. Thyme should be planted in full sun with well-draining soil and will rot in place if left in saturated soil. Thyme offers a distinctive peppery taste and can be used either fresh or dry in soups, stews, stuffing and poultry dishes.  According to the University of Illinois Extension, its flavor and fragrance will remain with long, slow cooking. One variety offering outstanding contrast is a Broadleaf Thyme (Thymus pulegioides) variety ‘Foxley’. This variety offers bright white variegation on rounded leaves and has the potential to mound up to 12-inches. Planted in the landscape, you can combine ‘Foxley’ with variety ‘Silver Queen’ Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus), preferred for its rich lemon-scented leaves and pale lilac-colored flowers. Another herb with cream-colored leaf margins is Variegated Oregano (Origanum vulgare), growing up to 12-inches tall by 2-feet wide, offering white flowers and tasting milder than common oregano.

This article just begins to scratch the surface of the variety of different types of herbs that one can incorporate into their home landscape. Aggie Horticulture is a great resource focusing on individual herbs and accessed online: aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable. Choose the link to Easy Gardening Fact Sheets that hosts a library of publications reviewing herb varieties. The Herb Society of America – Pioneer Unit is an outstanding regional chapter that meets regularly in Brenham, Round Top and Burton and will host programs open to the public. Find more info about their activities at: www.herbsocietypioneer.org. I invite you to share your ideas and successes in your garden and join me for my live call-in garden show Garden Success airing weekly on Thursdays at 12 pm on KAMU-FM 90.9. Let the spice of herbs bring flavor and health to you and I look forward to seeing you in the garden.