Class Preview: A Potted Herb Garden

Chives in the Discovery Garden. Photo by Karen Webbink

By Annie Yang

Pineapple sage adds sweetness to desserts and drinks.
Photo by A. Yang.

Duke Gardens in the springtime is bursting with thousands of stunning, eye-catching blooms and plants. But some of the plants here can do more than just brighten up a garden—they can spice up your recipes!

The herb garden in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden is a perfect place to visit to familiarize yourself with a great variety of culinary herbs, as well as herbs with other uses. And you can create your own container herb garden, and learn how to help it thrive, in "A Potted Herb Garden," a 3-hour hands-on class on Saturday, April 22, with horticulturist and garden designer Lauri Lawson (more info below).

You’ll find some of the most frequently used herbs right in the Discovery Garden, including sage, thyme and sorrel. These and other herbs are quite versatile and can be found in drinks, salads, sauces, and dishes both savory and sweet.

Red-veined sorrel has a tart flavor. Photo: Yang.

Sage is often paired with rich, fatty meats and other savory dishes for its pungent taste, but in the Discovery Garden, you may stumble across another variety of this plant. Pineapple sage makes a wonderful addition to sweet desserts and beverages. It can be incorporated into batter to make pineapple sage pound cake, or it can be crushed and added to cool drinks perfect for the rising temperatures. There are many possibilities to be explored with this herb, and it is not frequently found in grocery stores, so growing pineapple sage in your garden is a great decision. Your palate and stomach will thank you.

The herb garden is also home to many different varieties of thyme, including silver common thyme and lemon thyme. Thyme is a savory herb, somewhat spicier than oregano and sweeter than sage, and it works well in sauces, soups and marinades. Lemon thyme, however, is a sweeter variety and not as bitter as its cousins such as silver common thyme. As you might have guessed, lemon thyme has a lemony flavor and is great in salads, teas and meats. Thyme is another versatile herb that makes a fantastic addition to a number of different dishes and to any herb garden.

Lemon thyme is great in salads, teas & meats.
Photo: Yang.

The bloody dock or red-veined sorrel is another herb that can be found in the Discovery Garden. Its blood red veins stand out against its green leaves and make this plant a real attention grabber. But this sorrel has both form and function. Its leaves are best eaten raw or cooked when they are young and haven’t become too tough or bitter to consume. This sorrel’s somewhat tart and spinach-like taste, as well as its striking colors, can make a salad a little more exciting.

These herbs and their uses are just a small sample of the variety of herbs you can learn about in the Discovery Garden and grown in your home garden.

We hope you'll join us for Lauri's "Potted Herb Garden" class, where participants can broaden their horticultural and culinary horizons with growing information and recipes, and create a 6-plant potted herb garden in a 10-inch nursery container to bring home and grow with confidence. The potted garden options for class may include the following: rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, basil, chives or mint.

CLASS INFORMATION:

A POTTED HERB GARDEN
April 22, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Location: greenhouse classroom
Fee: $55 Gardens members; $65 general public.
To register: 919-668-1707.

Blogger Annie Yang is a Duke freshman and a work-study marketing assistant at Duke Gardens.

Spring Plant Sale Preview: Herb Garden in a Box

We’re excited to continue our “in a box” plant sale feature that we launched at our fall sale, this time with an Herb Garden in a Box.

You can mix and match your favorite organic herbs to create a ready-to-go garden at $18 for 6 plants at our Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, April 1, 8 a.m. to noon. We’ll even have a few veggies eligible for the mix. How can you lose?

In addition, Gardens members get 10% off all plants — making the in-a-box feature an even bigger bargain! Members also get first dibs via our Member Preview Sale on Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. Urge your friends and family to join as well, so you can shop together! Learn more about the sale and membership here.

Need advice? Our expert horticulturists will be available to answer any questions you may have.


Here’s a sampling of what we’ll be offering:

bronze fennel
lemon verbena
mint 'Julep'
peppermint
mint 'Mojito'
golden oregano
rosemary 'Foxtail'
rosemary 'Gorizia'
tricolor sage
tarragon
English thyme
aloe vera
catnip
chives

Hope to see you at the sale!


SPRING PLANT SALE: Saturday, April 1, 8 a.m. to noon. Free admission & parking. Please bring wagons/carts and boxes if you have them.

MEMBER PREVIEW SALE: Friday, March 31, 4-6 p.m. Sign up or renew your membership online in advance or on site. Your support helps Duke Gardens preserve the Duke and Durham communities and visitors from around the world with educational programs and nationally acclaimed horticultural design. Thank you!

Photos by Cecilia Xie.

Spring Plant Sale Preview

Plants from Duke Gardens are always
popular at the Spring Plant Sale

By Kate Blakely

Springtime is a lovely mix of old and new. Old favorite bulbs are sprouting. And gardeners begin scouting out new possibilities for that extra special spot in the garden. Whether you’ve made a tradition of it or it’s your first time visiting us, the Duke Gardens Spring Plant Sale is always a wonderful opportunity to celebrate spring.

Every year Duke Gardens gathers a great variety of plants to offer for sale. This year, the sale will be Saturday, March 31, 8 a.m. to noon, with a preview sale for Gardens members Friday, March 30, from 5 to 7 p.m. (you can join on site).

Many of the featured plants have been propagated by volunteers on the Gardens’ propagation team. Gardens staff members, volunteers and members of the Durham Master Gardeners will be on hand and love to answer questions and provide advice for all your gardening needs.

Here’s a preview of some of the new and old favorites you’ll be able to find at the sale this year.

Purple-leaved smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'): This is an unusual plant of Chinese origin, and it sells out almost every year. The multi-stem shrub can grow up to 12 feet high. Its new growth and foliage provides a splash of purple or burgundy color in the garden.

“They produce flowers in a large panicle that’s open and fluffy,” says Jason Holmes, curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens. “That’s what gives them the appearance of smoke in the distance. It’s a real unique oddity that would fit well into a woodland landscape.”

Hostas: Hostas always generate interest in the garden, and you’ll see some new varieties at the sale, including ‘Autumn Frost’ and ‘Heat Wave’.

“ ‘Autumn Frost’ is a uniquely blue-foliaged hosta with an awesome variegation through the mid-vein,” says Holmes.

‘Heat Wave’ is certainly the best way to describe our southern summers. During the spring, this hosta has chartreuse centers with blue margins; then in summer the center brightens to gold and the edges turn blue-green.

“If deer are a problem and you love hostas,” Holmes says, “I would try them in a container on your deck or close to the house.”

Roses: If you’re looking for a hardy rose, don’t miss the Rosa chinensis ‘Mutabilis.’ This no-spray rose is a very heat-tolerant cultivar, said Holmes. It also stands up very well against insects and doesn’t appear to get diseases. It will bloom from the beginning of May through November, and you won’t even have to deadhead it. The Rosa chinensis will respond well to a little pruning during the winter months. All in all, it’s an easy-care favorite.

The sale will also feature a wonderful variety of herbs and vegetables, including squash, zucchini, fennel, dill and peppers, as well as heirloom tomatoes. It won’t include craft vendors, but it will feature additional plant vendors, with diverse offerings and areas of expertise. (See more info on our plant sale page.)

At the sale, plants will be marked with signs noting whether they’re drought- or deer-resistant. The Duke Gardens-propagated plants will also be marked; you may want to head there first, as people love bringing a little piece of Duke Gardens home to their own gardens.

A final thing to keep in mind is that because the sale is earlier this year than previous years, you should refrain from heading home and planting right away. Keep your new plants indoors until the last frost date, April 15.

For more information about the plant sale, Gardens membership or other Duke Gardens classes and public events, please go to gardens.duke.edu. To join Friends of Duke Gardens in order to attend the preview sale, please call 668-1711.

Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. The Gardens is at 420 Anderson St.

Kate Blakely is a graduate student at Duke Divinity School and a work-study assistant at Duke Gardens. This column first appeared in the March 17 Durham Herald-Sun.

Class preview: Herbs from the Garden

Learn about tansy and other herbs
in Duke Gardens' Herbs from the Garden class

By Crystal Cotton

A thriving herb garden that produces sugar, spice and everything nice needs some basic planning and care. Horticulturist Jan Watson has some sage advice for beginners, as well as those seeking to expand their herb palette.

The dirt

The best way to have prosperous herbs is by cultivating rich soil, says Jan Watson, a horticulturist at Duke Gardens.

“Work your soil up a little bit, get some nice soil in there, and the herbs will reward you a hundred-fold,” says Watson.

Tilling your soil or adding compost to it will help your herbs tremendously.

What to plant?

“The herbs that are the best are the ones that you find uses for,” says Watson. You may want herbs because of their scent, their taste or even for dyes. But you can also get creative with garden design by picking shapes, colors and textures that go together interestingly.

“You can use tansy, and a specific kind called Tanacetum ‘Isla Gold’ would be gorgeous,” says Watson. “Allium fistulosum, fennel and dill would be awesome. Fennel and dill have a really furry texture. If you mix that with the Allium fistulosum, which is very rigid and onion-like, it’d be a good combination because the textures are so different.”

When to plant & water?

Most people plant their herbs in early spring. But it’s not too late to plant them now, Watson says.

“June is a perfect time to plant,” she says. “You’ve just got to remember to water because they’re not established yet. So even though they’ll be drought-tolerant later, when you first put them in, you obviously have to water them.”

But avoid over-watering, she notes, particularly with rosemary and lavender, which are sensitive to too much water.

Sun or shade?

Most herbs want full sun, though some prefer a little bit of shade.
“Parsleys, basils, cilantro, dill—that’s all going to want some afternoon shade,” says Watson. “Otherwise, it’s going to ‘bolt’—it goes to seed too fast.”

When and how much to cut?

Try to avoid over-cutting, Watson says. And if they’re perennial herbs, don’t cut them back too late in the season. A good rule of thumb is to never cut off more than a third of an herb at a time, and only a little bit more as winter approaches. Cutting them too severely before winter will expose the stems to cold temperatures and may cause dieback.

Think outside of the pot

If you want to grow something different, try Stevia rebaudiana, which has become popular as a sugar substitute. You can add it most recipes that would otherwise call for sugar. But use less, because it’s more concentrated.

You can also try Cryptotaenia japonica, commonly known as Japanese parsley. This is a great substitute for regular flat-leaf parsley and it can be used in any dish that normally calls for parsley, such as soup and spaghetti. Since it’s a little stronger than flat-leaf parsley, you don’t have to use as much.

If you’re more interested in benefiting wildlife, fennel –which comes in black or the traditional green—would be a perfect herb to plant.

“It attracts swallowtail caterpillars. They eat the foliage and they actually lay their eggs on it. So there’s a benefit right there,” says Watson. “Right now in my fennel at home, there are baby praying mantises hiding amongst the foliage of the fennel. So for the wildlife aspect, it’s just so beneficial to the insects.”

Don’t like bugs? Why not plant one fennel for the caterpillars and one for yourself? The same with parsley. And remember, caterpillars become butterflies. So if you like butterflies, this is a way to bring more of them into your garden.

Herbal inspiration

For more ideas about what to plant, you can always visit Duke Gardens. There are several herbs growing at the bottom of the Terraces on the café side, and even in the Perennial Border that leads from the Rose Garden to the pergola. These include flat-leaf parsley, curly leaf parsley, Japanese parsley, chives, fennel, dill, marjoram, oregano, thyme and many others.

If you’d like to learn more, consider taking Watson’s class “Herbs from the Garden” on June 17 from 2 to 4 p.m. For information, call Duke Gardens’ registrar at 919-668-1707, email slsmith@duke.edu or go to gardens.duke.edu to read more.

Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. The Gardens is at 420 Anderson St.

Crystal Cotton is a junior at N.C. Central University and a communications intern at Duke Gardens.

The Spring Plant Sale Continues

By Lauren Sims

Thanks to all who shopped at our fund-raising Spring Plant Sale. Duke Gardens raised roughly $10,000 after expenses. And the preview sale for members drew our highest gross ever. The preview also attracted new members who wanted first dibs on the wide array of plants -- including about 40 Duke employees who took advantage of a membership discount.

If you missed the sale, all is not lost. There are still some fabulous plants available at the Gardens' Terrace Shop, just waiting for you to give them a loving home. And for an added "Duke appreciation" perk, Duke employees may have a 20 percent discount on these plants from May 18 through May 25. (Update: this sale is now open to the general public & the plants will remain on sale until they're gone.)

There are a collection of colorful hanging baskets to choose from, full of flowers such as pink verbena.

We also have the stokesia 'Mary Gregory,' which will have a feathery yellow bloom.

The kaleidoscope abelia is a great option and always keeps you guessing; its leaves change color throughout the year.

There are some gorgeous bushes available, like the red-tipped cleyera japonica or santolina.

Cleyera japonica

Santolina

And we have a selection of the ever-popular hostas (see our hosta video) and the hardy banana plant.

Banana

If you're looking to attract wildlife to your garden, come check out the Joe Pye weed (which your neighborhood butterflies will love) and nepeta “catnip,” (which will please both the cats and the bees).

Joe Pye Weed

Nepeta 'Catnip'

(cats love it)

And if you’re looking to attract the envious glances of your neighbors, you can’t beat the sheer beauty of plants like the camellia, the spice rose, and the peony 'Scarlett O’Hara.'

Spice Rose

Duke Gardens can also help you stock your edible gardens this season. We still have a wide variety of herbs available, including rosemary, oregano, lavender, chives, chamomile and sweet basil.

Add that to our squash plants and blueberry bushes, and you are well on your way to a delectable summer garden!

Blueberry