To beat the Christmas rush, start your gifts in April. Plant herbs and everlastings now; they will be ready to deliver long before the madding holiday scramble.
Every good cook appreciates herbs. So do gardeners—they take little room and require minimum bother.
What Plants To Try For Your First Herb Garden
If this is your first herb garden, try the standbys—sage, thyme, mint, and parsley. The first three are perennials, so next year all you’ll have to do is weed—and try some other varieties.
Beware of the mint! It spreads overnight and must either be weeded with a firm hand or planted where it cannot harm. We grow ours near a downspout where it gets ample moisture and interferes with nothing else.
Catalogs list several parsleys: we prefer the plain single-leaved type for its spicy flavor. Sow the seeds where they are to grow, thin and water generously.
Harvesting By Midsummer
By midsummer, your plants will be ready for shearing. We harvest ours just after the dew has dried. Cut the plants often to collect the tenderest, most flavorful leaves.
Take tips several inches long, tie them together by variety and hang them in a dry airy spot until the leaves are crisp.
What To Do After Planting
After you plant, begin to collect containers—pill bottles are good. A set of bottles might have large twins for the sage and parsley and smaller ones for mint and thyme.
Fashion labels and place bunches of one herb on a tray. Snip off leaves and fill bottles. Put the labeled containers in a box and bring out the wrapping paper.
Everlastings appeal to everyone who enjoys fresh-looking flowers for the holidays. From your standpoint, they are particularly good for out-of-towners on your list, for, in a sturdy box, they survive the worst mauling of the post office. The dried blooms weigh almost nothing, so they cannot crush each other, and postage is negligible.
Sowing Seeds On Warm Nights
As soon as nights are warm, sow the seed where the plants are to grow. Ordinary soil suits them fine. They need no pampering.
The easiest everlastings are mixtures, available from any seed house. If you want something more, try statice; you’ll probably look up the seed of its perennial cousins next year.
Blue spires of perennial salvias bloom easily from seed the first year. Briza maxima (quaking grass) adds interest to any arrangement. Acroclinium and helichrysum bear gay daisy-like flowers.
Plants For Winter Arrangements
Please don’t overlook the celosias, which have come a long way from their ancestors, the dreary cockscombs. The new Toreador has tremendous bright redheads.
We like the tall, plumed varieties which keep us well supplied with armfuls of feathery yellow, red, and orange blossoms that give height to winter arrangements. For best results, start celosia seed in the house.
Gather everlasting flowers before they have matured, strip off the leaves, bunch by variety and hang most of them heads down in a cool, airy place.
Keep them out of strong light, or the colors will fade. Put a few flowers in cans with heads upright. As the stems dry, they will curve into graceful shapes.
When Christmas comes, arrange your gift bouquet in a container or leave this fun for your friends.
44659 by Bebe Miles