Best Way to Make a Cartwheel Herb Garden

Herbs can be grown in many places in the garden-as part of a vegetable plot, in beds near the kitchen door or in containers. But for a real herb feature, why not construct a simple cartwheel herb garden?

Step-by-step to creating a cartwheel herb garden

• During winter, dig an area 1.8-2.4m (6-8ft) square; mix in well-decomposed compost.

• In spring, rake the area level. Systematically tread over the surface.
• To mark a circle, use a piece of string 60-75cm long tied to a cane at each end. Insert one cane in the centre of the proposed cartwheel area, then scribe a line to indicate the rim.
• Mark the positions of the spokes, as well as the hub – form a circle 23-30cm (9-12in) wide at the centre.
• If the planting areas are too large, use pebbles to divide them into inner and outer segments.
• Water the plants, while still in their pots, the day before planting them.
• Position the plants (still in their pots) and adjust them into an attractive display.
• Use a trowel to plant the herbs.
• Water the plants to settle them in.

Plants for cartwheel herb gardens

Low-growing herbs with attractive leaves create the best displays; tall types, such as sage, can be kept low by pinching off the tips of shoots to encourage bushiness.

Constraining some herbs to the confines of a cartwheel is against their nature, so be prepared to replant the wheel after three years with young plants. Here are a few herbs to consider:

• Chives: Perennial, with grass-like, tubular, green leaves and rose-pink flowers during early and mid-summer.
• Mints: Range of perennial plants with attractive leaves. They are invasive.
• Parsley: A biennial usually grown as a hardy annual, with bright green foliage.

• Rosemary: Evergreen shrub, with aromatic, dark green leaves and mauve flowers mainly in spring.
• Sage: Shrubby with grey-green leaves; it is the variegated forms that create the most spectacular displays.
• Thyme: Creeping, evergreen, mat-forming shrub with dark green leaves. Several forms, with colored leaves: Thymusx citriodorus ‘Aureus’ (golden leaves); T. x C. ‘Silver Queen’ (variegated leaves).