"Tea" flower garden - flower bed for growing herbs and herbs

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Varied, fragrant, colorful, and often healing herbal teas are a special treat for every gardener. The fragrant tea rose petals, refreshing mint leaves, and the playful lemon balm of lemon balm are so seductive that it is almost impossible to make special tea from them in the summer. For those who like original drinks and independently made herbal preparations, there are specially created “tea” flower beds and garden flowers - small garden compositions in which plants are planted that can become the main star of tea drinking in their garden.

Content:

Choosing a place in the garden for a "tea" flower garden
General rules for the design of "tea" flower beds
The stars of the "tea" flower beds

Choosing a place in the garden for a "tea" flower garden

The fashion for “tea” flower beds came to us, surprisingly, not from England at all. Special flower beds made from useful plants became popular along with Scandinavian design, but this idea quickly won the hearts of landscape masters. At exhibitions, fairs and garden shows around the world, different variations of tea beds have become almost mandatory participants. Breaking a small ensemble of plants in your garden, leaves, flowers, twigs or roots of which can be used for herbal teas is a particular pleasure. Such a flower garden will surely attract a lot of honey plants and butterflies, because such perennials are the favorites of not only gardeners themselves.

A flower bed can be broken in any corner of the garden. It should be a mini-flower garden - large, pompous flower beds are best left for either classic design or mix design. Neat, rounded, oval or square flower beds that make it easy to reach even the plants in the middle are ideal. It is better to surround the flower garden with a decorative border. Neat low wattle or fence, decorative ribbon, clinker border - choose better warm, cozy design options that are in harmony with the style of your garden.

If you are just experimenting, then you can create a portable flower garden - in a large flower bed, an old trough, a large portable container, and it’s worth going to stationary tea beds after your first “test”.

The main thing to take care of is choosing a warm, protected area and a place where it is convenient to approach the plants. Very often, a “tea” flower bed is placed on the lawn, on the terrace or on the terrace (like a flower-interspersed flower), near the house itself, replacing the plantings near the foundation or near the recreation area. It is logical to create a "tea" flower garden where it is convenient to collect fragrant material for making tea - not far from the places of tea drinking or at home.

General rules for the design of "tea" flower beds

In the design of "tea" flower beds adhere to the general rules:

plants for regular gardens strictly rank, and for landscape ones - they slightly shift emphasis and mix cultures among themselves to achieve the effect of wild charm;
the structure of the flower garden can be made more interesting, thanks to the division into sections, the introduction of a pattern or bright plates, through multi-level solutions;
crops are selected according to preferences for the same conditions and caring for plants or they select a place so that part of the flower garden is in the shade, and part enjoys the bright sun;
plants should contrast among themselves according to the type of flowering, the structure of inflorescences or the size of the flowers, the type and nature of the growth of greenery;
The soil for planting is prepared in advance by digging the soil deep, applying high-quality organic fertilizers and adjusting the soil reaction to neutral, and its structure to loose and breathable, but quite moisture-resistant.

One of the most important principles for compiling “tea” flower beds: plants that are going to be used to make drinks should be selected carefully, carefully analyzing their medicinal properties. Each, even the most modest culture used for herbal teas, has a whole range of properties and is also used in medicinal collections.

When choosing plants, it is worth checking that they have a tonic or calming effect, the basic principles of their effect on the body. Be sure to draw up a flower garden should take into account the state of health, especially chronic diseases. Indeed, despite its aroma, beauty and variety, herbal teas are not a completely harmless exercise for experimentation. In some cases, about plants whose influence you doubt, it is better to consult a doctor and phytotherapist. Before using plants for tea for the first time, it is worth checking the individual reaction to their decoctions.

The stars of the "tea" flower beds

Usually, when mentioning tea flower beds, mint and lemon balm beds immediately come to mind. But the assortment of species for such fragrant, interesting and functional flower beds is not limited to unpretentious and standard spicy herbs. There is a place on the flower garden and berry bushes, and plants from the category of flowering stars, and even the inhabitants of ordinary beds.

Of the shrubs on the "tea" flower garden, you can settle the species that are most often used for tea gatherings - tea rose, "false jasmine" mock up, Japanese quince, black currant, raspberry. For interesting fruit teas, fruit trees can also be used: columnar miniature trees, including apple trees or cherries, can be planted in the center of the flower garden or in the background, creating spectacular and beautiful accents there.

Rosehips can be included in the number of tea plants, however, bushes that give a large number of fruits rarely boast of compact dimensions. Both dwarf trees and shrubs play the role of the visual peak of the composition. They are placed not only to give the flowerbed of tea plants the most interesting relief, but also taking into account the necessary care, including annual pruning and rejuvenation: berry and fruit shrubs, ornamental plant species need free access. Therefore, placing them in the center of the tea flower garden is not practical.

If there is a separately growing bush or an old plant in the garden that they plan to radically rejuvenate - for example, a bush of currant or rose, then you can break the flower garden around it.

There is a place on the “tea” flower bed and another berry plant - wild strawberry.

Herbaceous perennials and spicy herbs suggest choosing flowering plants (and not only) to your taste and your favorite aromas. Some of the best crops for tea flower gardens include:

mint, including curly, ordinary and peppermint, fragrant, bright, sprawling aggressively, but very beautiful with sufficient soil moisture;
lemon balm, preserving the beauty in almost any circumstance, with its impeccable leaf shape, bright, almost light green color, as well as lemon or cat catnip very similar to it, which is often sold here under the guise of lemon balm;
dazzlingly bright, stunningly hardy and pleasantly distinguished against any background, the lofant - Korean mint, agastakhis;
sages - ordinary and giving every year self-sowing annual nutmeg;
unique silver-carved and slightly dangerous fragrant rue;
sloppy, but very elegant during flowering, pharmacy or ordinary chamomile, which in the company of denser plants seems weightless;
thyme or thyme, different varieties of which differ in shade of aroma and color of greenery, the shape and density of the bushes;
valuable not only with its fragrant inflorescences similar to fireworks, lemon monard;
spectacular, hardy and fashionable fragrant echinacea;
narrow-leaved lavender with its neat inflorescences and unique leaves.

There are also “amateur” plants - fragrant fennel, whose light-lilac inflorescences, umbrellas surprise with a completely different shade of aroma than anise leaves, as well as cilantro, chicory, in which roots, St. John's wort, hyssop, lemon verbena, oregano are added to tea Ivan tea, fireweed, tansy, sweet bedstraw, basilica, amaranth, rosemary, marigolds, cornflowers, marjoram, felt pelargonium, snakehead. And some manage to grow even a fragrant saberfish and calamus on a regular “tea” flower bed.