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SPRING HOME & GARDEN • MARCH 2020
THE WINCHESTER STAR
HERBS DO DOUBLE-DUTY Herbs that add not only flavor in the kitchen but beauty in the garden By ADRIAN HIGGINS (c) 2020, The Washington Post
Spring is just around the corner whether the gardener is prepared or not. So if the dormant season is the moment to suck our thumbs and think about novel plants for the new season, it’s time to get a move on. I’m thinking about using more perennial herbs ornamentally, by planting varieties that are particularly pretty. Lots of herbs happen to be pretty by accident - rosemary, thyme and lavender varieties are obvious choices - but I’ve always had a deep appreciation of chives. They turn any garden into a magazine cover in May, when their violet-purple blossoms appear as jovial orbs above wispy clumps of foliage. Chive leaves are elongated tubes, gathered and snipped as a garnish. If you pick apart the flower heads, the individual florets enliven the sight and taste of a salad. Flowering chives represent that time in May when the heat is knocking on the door, but spring, fresh and lush, is fully expressed. The Marchsown salad greens are ready for picking - and sprin-
kling with chive blossoms. The chive watcher will know that the blossoms are magnets for bees. The resulting honey might be a bit oniony, but the bees are efficient pollinators. The blooms of May become the seeds of summer, and in a fertile, free-draining and sunny site, they soon grow into grasslike clumps. Unless you are quick to dig them up, they become mature plants ready to repeat the cycle. At the base of a 20-foot fence, I put in three chive plants from wee pots. With a few years, their seeding had formed a hedge along most of the fence. In the face of such fecundity, I am ruthless. After they flower, instead of removing just the blooms, I cut the entire clumps back to the ground and dig out any invaders. The chives grow back nicely over the summer, having made room for a collection of salvias. Given this embarrassment of riches, the idea of planting more chives seems odd, but I came across some new varieties at a trade show where Mar y Vaananen of Jelitto Perennial Seeds was thrilled to talk about them. Three new varieties are available this year, bred for the uniform size and texture of the
The Washington Post
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