Our Herb Wall

Over xmas/New Year I was inspired by a picture in Lesley Bremness' The Complete Book of Herbs to add a herb wall in the back garden. In my first and second garden plans I'd included pretty large herb gardens and—although there were lots of spaces for herbs in my third garden plan—I was unhappy about losing a dedicated herb garden. When I saw this picture I realised that I could use some of the bluestones we had lying around, and some of the vertical space in the garden, for herbs!

As Bremness explains, the advantage of a herb wall is that it gives you a well-drained rocky environment to grow herbs like catnip and pennywort, and the wall can be arranged to catch lots of sun on the Northern face, and be protected from too much sun on the Southern face. I figured that if I curved the wall around our monster gum, the Southern face would also be somewhat shaded by the tree trunk, meaning the herbs would be less likely to burn up in mid-summer.

Unfortunately, we didn't have quite enough bluestones for what I had in mind, so in January I bought some more off eBay (19 for $50). Getting the ca. 200kg of bluestone home in my car was not fun, but we did it, and once they were home I laid out the herb wall like this:

Many of herbs that Bremness suggested for the herb wall were pretty exotic, Germander and Pellitory-of-the-wall, or exotic forms, like Prostrate Sage and Prostrate Winter Savory, so I figured that I wouldn't be getting any of them at Bunnings and went looking for a specialist. Amazingly, I didn't find one. I thought I'd find specialist herb farms all over the place, or that I'd be able to get everything I wanted online: but not so. In fact, finding a well-stocked herb-dealer turned out to be an almost impossible task.

In desperation I did, in fact, go to Bunnings. And I was right: it was a waste of time. I then went to Banksia Nurseries and—much to my amazement—found a lot of herbs. Not the ones I was after, but I had pretty-well given up on finding anything at all so I bought everything I could knew or had ever wanted. This as the haul:

(Of course, I bought far too many herbs to plant in the wall, but I planted what I could. Some of the rest I will plant elsewhere. The others … R.I.P.)

… when everything was planted I covered the wall with netting to keep the possums (and the dog) away until the herbs could get established (this was in the second week of February) …

…which—two months later—they now have.

While I was waiting for the herbs to get established, I discovered that there is/was a herb farm in Lillydale (the "Lilydale Herb Farm Shop and Nursery"). I had found their website (here) early on, but dismissed them because they seemed to be primarily a restaurant and dried-herb business.

When I went to visit them** I discovered I was wrong—they were a genuine herb nursery too—but the nursery was closed and a sign informed us that they were in the process of moving. Very frustrating. According to a call I had the other day, however, they have finished moving now and I look forward to visiting them soon. But, moving on …

I took the netting off over Easter. In the few days since we have had no losses, and no possum/dog damage. In another week or so I will take down the stakes and twine and will plant a few more herbs in the gaps—which I will get from the Lilydale Herb Farm. Then I might post a list of all the herbs we have growing.

**I was actually directed to the old Lilydale Herb Farm address by someone at New Gippsland Seeds in Silvan. I was so desperate to find a herb nursery that I had convinced myself that New Gippsland Seeds might have herb plants for sale (since they had seeds) … or they might just know what had happened to the "Herbs & Cottage Plants Nursery" in Hurstbridge, which seems to have disappeared (or rather, been replaced by Going Green Solutions—to judge by the Google Street View of Main Road, Hurstbridge.)

So I went to New Gippsland Seeds and bought … some herb seeds. They had no plants, though apparently they sometimes do. And they hadn't heard of the Herbs & Cottage Plants Nursery. However, they did assure me that Lilydale Herb Farm was not just a restaurant and didn't only sell dried herbs. So I went, didn't get into the nursery, but did discover they had one. So, we'll try them again soon.