Get Going on the Garden

In an ideal world, you could put on your shoes and walk a short way to visit with your neighbor, the herb grower, who would happily answer all of your questions as she loaded up your basket with exactly the plants you’ve been longing to grow. Such helpful people really do exist, and perhaps you are fortunate enough to have one in your community. If you don’t, simply take your quest a little farther down the road, to an herb-growing expert who’s also in the business of shipping plants to your door. These days, there are excellent mail-order herb nurseries in every region, which often offer organically grown plants impossible to find in retail stores. 

Make a Request from the Midwest

Gene Gage is not the first heartland herb lover to set up shop as a mail-order nursery. In Athens, Ohio, Peter Borchard, owner of Companion Plants, has been growing and shipping herbs and other useful plants for 24 years. “I still get excited when I find a plant that has a useful and special purpose,” Borchard says. Every new plant is an adventure for Borchard, who, along with many gardeners, has the tendency to become slightly obsessed with the scents, flavors and uses of herbs. Old world galangals (Alpinia and Kaempferia species), for example, which resemble gingers, are among the many plants in Borchard’s collection he thinks more people should enjoy.

A bit farther north, on Lake Erie, west of Cleveland, Ohio, Karen and Mark Langan, owners of certified organic Mulberry Creek Herb Farm, grow and sell 500 different herbs, including many miniatures, their newest specialty. “Anyone can enjoy a miniature garden, because there are no physical or spatial limitations,” Karen says. Mulberry Creek has a 48-page catalog as well as an online version that includes five colors of elfin herb (Cuphea hyssopifolia), a favorite tree-shaped miniature that often continues to bloom when brought indoors for the winter.