All about herbs: Botanic garden offers expansive definition of ‘useful’ plants

If your notion of an herb garden is a collection of tasty plants grouped near the back door of a charming cottage, the newest attraction at the Memphis Botanic Garden is sure to give you a new perspective.

Photo by Kyle Kurlick

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The raised knot garden is the focal point of the formal area in the new herb garden at Memphis Botanic Garden. The knot features an intricate planting of lavender, dwarf barberry and bay laurel, the source of bay leaves.

Hardy orchid (spiranthes cernua) is now blooming in the new herb garden, which includes formal, woodland and meadow areas.

More than 500 different herbs used by cultures all over the world have been installed in a three-quarters-acre site between the Woodland Garden and the Iris Garden.

“It’s like a living museum of the world of plants,” said Chris Cosby, curator of the new garden. “Someone from almost any culture could walk into this garden and find a plant they can recognize.”

The English, whose gardens are widely emulated in America, were relative latecomers to the use of herbs, Cosby said. “In the Hindu culture, they’ve been using herbs for more than 5,000 years,” he said.

The broad focus of the new garden challenges the traditional definition of exactly what an “herb” is.

While there is no worldwide consensus, botanists typically describe herbs as “small, seed-bearing plants with fleshy (herbaceous) parts, rather than woody, that are useful to humans.”

In the “The Herb Society of America New Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses” by Deni Bown, an expanded definition is more in line with the new garden’s focus because it also adds: “trees, shrubs, annuals, vines and more primitive plants, such as ferns, mosses, algae, lichens, and fungi. These herbs are valued for their flavor, fragrance, medicinal and healthful qualities, economic and industrial uses, pesticidal properties, and coloring materials (dyes).”

While most herb gardens are sited in the sunny spaces that common herbs need, about half of the new garden lies under a shady canopy of mature trees.

That’s where herbs essential to Native-American cultures are installed, along with useful plants of the forested regions of China, Japan and Korea.

Since he was a child, Cosby has been fascinated with ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between humans and plants.

“When I was 5 or 6, I remember transplanting a yellow dock (a medicinal herb), and haven’t stopped since,” said Cosby, an anthropology graduate who began traveling the U.S. and the world at age 18.

Wherever he goes, he observes how people use plants.

“It’s something that comes naturally to me,” he said.

To further his knowledge, Cosby recently did graduate research on the herbs used by the Chickasaws at the C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa.

The Native-American herbs in the new garden include many plants used by local tribes, but are not limited to them.

Some of the plants a visitor will see are better known for their ornamental qualities.

Epimediums, hellebores, primulas and ferns are used today mostly as ornamentals, but native people had uses for them.

“A species of epimedium was used as an aphrodiasic,” Cosby said. “Ferns have de-worming qualities. “

Boxwood, which is used to edge beds in the new garden and to separate the sections, is traditional in European-style herb gardens. But its tough wood was once used to make musical instruments and carved pieces, such as chess men.

The woodland is one of three major components of the garden, which was designed by Tom Pellett with input from the horticultural staff at the botanic garden, landscape architect Larry Griffin and members of the Memphis Herb Society.

The two other components are the meadow and the formal (traditional) garden.

“Meadow plants are those that are larger and more exuberant than the other herbs,” Cosby said. Three kinds of sumac, mugwort, goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed and others grow in the meadow.

The formal area has beds dedicated to herbs for specific uses: culinary, perfume, dyes, crafting, beverage and medicinal.

Plants with economic and/or industrial uses, including fiber crops such as flax and switchgrass, which is used to make biofuels, are grouped together.

Two changing beds, one sunny and one shady, showcase useful plants from the annual honored country of the Memphis in May International Festival.

Like all new gardens, the plants in the herb garden need a year or two to grow enough to fill in the beds.

Soil mixes were customized in the various sections. The woodland soil gets additional fertility from organic material like compost. Because meadow plants require less fertility, their soil has fewer amendments.

In the raised knot garden — the focal point of the formal area — the soil is amended with sand and gravel to make sure the lavender, dwarf barberry and bay laurel plants have the drainage they need to survive our wet winters.

Water availability and drainage for the entire garden are enhanced by the use of pervious concrete on walkways, terraces and other hard surfaces.

As rainwater seeps through the porous material into the ground, the roots of plants and trees get essential moisture.

Kevin Baltz, president of Baltz Sons Concrete Services, persuaded the team at the botanic garden to scrap the originally specified asphalt walkways in favor of the pervious material, which he could provide at a lower cost and with a more decorative appearance.

By using stamping techniques and adding water-based stains with high pigment content to the concrete, Baltz and his crew were able to create the look of several natural materials, such as London cobblestone, Arizona flagstone, Southwest slate, granite and even wood.

At key intersections, they devised decorative mosaics, such as a traditional compass rose showing eight directional winds.

Scattered into the pavement are herbal motifs made by imprinting freeze-dried plant material into the wet concrete.

The walkways and footbridge meet the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We’re really excited about the herb garden,” said Jim Duncan, executive director of the botanic garden. “It’s exceeded our expectations. Our goal is to make it the largest herb garden in the South.”

Cosby said the hardest thing was deciding which plants to leave out.

“We want to stretch ourselves,” he said. “We want to do something that is world class.”

More information

What: Herb Garden dedication.

When: 6:15 p.m. Oct. 27.

Where: Memphis Botanic Garden.

Herb garden donors: Sylvia Goldsmith Marks, Memphis Herb Society, Canale Foundation; Baltz Sons Concrete Service.

Details: Prior to the dedication, members of the Memphis Herb Society will offer herbal edibles, cosmetics, crafts and more for sale in the Goldsmith Civic Garden Center from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

After the dedication, the public is invited to attend the herb society program “Hurray for Horseradish: 2011 Herb of the Year” at 7 p.m.

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