Miniature Herbs
(Page 2 of 5)
April/May 1993
By Andy Van Hevelingen
One of my favorite miniatures is Majorcan germander (Teucrium majoricum). It forms a compact mound 6 to 8 inches tall and has proven perfectly hardy here in northwestern Oregon (Zone 8). Its attractive blue-green foliage is covered with ringlets of bright pink flower heads, so small and delicate that I can envision them catching the eye of a fairy, who might wear the flowery circlet as a crown. This plant is somewhat difficult to propagate because, if drainage is not excellent, its roots will rot. However, its long blooming period and the sweet fragrance of its foliage are well worth the effort.
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I’m an avid lavender collector, and when I heard that a friend had a small, white-flowered lavender, I thought it must be dwarf white lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Nana Alba’), which grows 10 to 12 inches high until, in its third year, flower spikes add 3 to 5 inches to its height. But the plant turned out to be L. ‘Alpine Alba’, which is not yet commercially available but soon will be showing up in nursery catalogs. The start I received was only about 2 inches tall, and after five years in a sunny location with the best care I could supply, it’s still only 4 to 5 inches tall, towering to 7 inches when in bloom. It’s what I would call a “miniature dwarf” lavender and is an excellent choice for the trough or rock garden. I suspect that the short-stemmed flowers would be fine in a tussie-mussie or nosegay. This lavender grows on the edge of my greenhouse border, but the bigger and bolder herbs tend to steal the show.
Another good silver miniature herb is the dwarf curry plant (Helichrysum italicum ‘Nana’). This plant forms a tight, erect bush 8 to 10 inches high with dense, short foliage and tiny mustard-yellow flowers. It produces more of the silver foliage than the standard curry plant does, yet retains the characteristic currylike fragrance. It requires better drainage than the larger curry plant, though it seems less hardy here, often suffering winter damage.
Even lamb’s-ears (Stachys byzantina) boasts a miniature relative, S. candida. This evergray, compact subshrub grows only to 5 or 6 inches and produces tiny, round, woolly, silver-gray fragrant leaves. Its pale yellow flowers are delicately decorated with a double maroon stripe down the center. This plant is a gem for the rock or alpine garden.
Dittany of Crete (Origanum dictamnus) is another superb choice. I plant it in a terra-cotta pot which evaporates away any excess water, providing the excellent drainage so essential for this herb. The plant is a mound of gray leaves that resemble little woolly mouse ears, and the pink-tinged flower bracts that form when the summer gets hot (June in our area) hang like hop flowers and persist for a few months.
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