Herb & Wormwood Garden

Description

• Wormwood belongs to the Artemisia family, a group of silvery, narrow-leaved, aromatic herbs. The bushy plant grows between 2 and 4 feet tall, depending on the variety. Wormwood's grayish-green leaves are slender and elongated, with rounded tips. The herbs sport small yellow flowers in the summer.

Uses

• The extreme bitterness of wormwood leaves makes them unsuitable in culinary herb gardens. Herb gardens devoted to aromatics or natural cleaning ingredients, however, often devote room for the silvery queen of herbs. They may also be included in traditional medicine gardens, but herbalist Lesley Bremness warns that the herb should be considered toxic when taken internally. Instead, use dried wormwood for moth-repelling potpourri, or prepare a cooled infusion to disinfect countertops and floors.

Herb Garden Placement

• In the herb and edibles garden, plant wormwood near broad-leaved herbs and other edibles that are susceptible to pests, such as basil, strawberries and carrots. Use tall varieties as a back-of-border plant. The silvery foliage forms a handsome backdrop for flowering herbs. The compact cultivar "Silver Mound" makes an effective low-growing border for formal herbal gardens, Bremness notes. The herb thrives in full sun to part shade and dislikes wet soil.