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                                               Intro Mary Garden
Why We Grow Herbs


(From Garden of Memories catalog 1964 - 1965)

Bonnie Roberson

  Try some of the following ideas.
  Slice ripe tomatoes, sprinkle
  generously with fresh chives (cut
  fine with scissors), add a few
  leaves of fresh sage - to pork roast.
  A few leaves of salad burnet gives 
  cucumber flavor to tossed salad.
  Make your own candied Angelica and
  Lovage (recipes in Clarkson book).
  Add fresh tarragon or basil to white
  vinegar.  Purple basil makes a
  vinegar as beautiful as it is good.
  Cut white base from fragrant red rose
  petals, add 2 cups to a quart of
  simple syrup - a rare treat with
  waffles.  Jean Gordon gives many
  recipes for such taste treats.

     A few blades of Buffalo grass in a bottle of vodka makes the
traditional Zubvodka of Poland, or lay them among linens.  Sweet
wormwood among woolens give moth protection and a warm sweet scent.
Put a sprig of thyme in stew for flavor.  A few petals of Calundula
for color. Try a leaf of lovage in soup. Dry clary sage leaf and
flower for fixative in pot pourri or sachet.  A generous handfull
of lavander flowers or fresh thyme in a pint of rubbing alcohol
makes a refreshing rub for a bed patient. Take a TUSSIE-MUSSIE to
your friends when they are ill (these are tiny bouquets of herbs
and flowers) - warmth from hands while holding will release
essential oils.  Many combinations may be used.  Our favorite:
sprigs of mint, Santolina, lavender flowers, a red rose bud and
tips of rosemary tied with narrow silver ribbon. You will find such
a floral offering most welcome.

     Each fall we "pot up" many herbs for winter use and for gifts.
Our gift plants are planted in hand crafted pottery from the wheel
of Di Bowler, for the warm earthy colors of these unique containers
are a perfect foil for the "homey" texture of the herb leaf.

     We often use bergomot mint. Our plant came from Ann Hathaway's
garden in England.  In a sunny window the leaves take on a purple
hue.  Leaves can be snipped through the winter to provide a cup of
tea.  Beautiful, useful, are these potted herbs.  An arrangement of
Silver Artemesia,  golden yarrow and pungent wormwood in a blue
pottery bowl will help brighten those dark winter days.  Dried
powdered herbs to sprinkle on a tin placed over a hot burner will
soon erase "stuffiness" of rooms closed against the icy fingers of
winter.  A crystal jar of colorful pot pourri - its captured
fragrance a joy forever.  A satin sachet. Jars of dried mint for
tea.  A scented geranium for a blind child.  A Biblical herb for
your priest, minister or rabbi.  These are only a few of the many
reasons why we grow herbs.  You will find many, many others as you
walk through your own herb garden.

     The Garden of Memories is not a large commercial venture.  Few
herb nurseries are. Our garden is truly A "Garden of Memories".  As
we walk down the paths we walk with yesterday for here grow the
plants that grew in every colonial garden.

     Wormwood, Penny Royal and sweet scented Santolina to perfume
the Crinolines of a by-gone era.  Florentine Iris to make Milady's
powder. Biblical plants: Hyssop, Saffron Anise and Dill.

     Malva, Rue, Holy Thistle - the same varieties that once grew
in all Medleval monasteries.

     Roses that were first known at Malmaison.  A gift to the
Empress Josephine.  The "ancestors" of our English lavender was
beloved by English queens.

     Mints beloved by all.  Sage carried overland in a prairie
schooner by my own grandmother. Today, as we walk the fragrant
paths, our hope is many will join us in our endeavor to leave to
those who follow, a heritage as rich as that left to us by the herb
gardeners of yesteryear.

Reproduced with permission.

Photo added by Mary's Gardens.