Nine Perennial Herbs You Should Plant in Your Garden (and Three to Avoid)

Access to fresh herbs is a culinary hack, and these shrubs can fill out your garden too.

In my reckoning, there are four kinds of herbs: tender herbs that go to seed, die at the end of the season, and must be replanted; perennial herbs, which die in winter but come back year after year; evergreen herbs, which somehow manage to remain harvestable through most of the winter; and plain annoying herbs, which spread like mad and aren't all that useful. 

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, those tender herbs manage to start self sowing, like dill and parsley.  But if you want to take full advantage of the landscaping benefits you can realize from big, shrubby perennial herbs, and be able to harvest them during the winter months, here’s what I would suggest planting (and avoiding).

Lavender

While I personally believe lavender’s uses are oversold (it can be made into an essential oil, but you still need to actually make it, and how much dried lavender can one really stand in one’s home?), there’s no denying the staying power of the shrub, itself. There are a number of varieties, but any will be a favorite for bees, and look spectacular along a fence or gate. It grows upright into a sturdy bush, and lasts well into fall. 

Sage

There are more varieties of sage than you can imagine, with a variance of leaves, from soft and fluffy to fine and variegated. If you plant sage, you’ll find it takes root easily and grows prolifically, and is easy to harvest from spring through a mild winter. 

Rosemary

Rosemary is a woody perennial that can grow into an absurdly sized shrub, and it is, in my opinion, one of the more utilitarian perennial herbs. Having it near my grill in the backyard, I often find myself clipping some to throw on the grill while food is cooking, just for the smell of it. Like lavender, it’s ideal as an architectural element in your yard too. 

Bay laurel

Bay laurel comes in two varieties: a tree and a shrub. While I never used bay often before owning my own shrub, once I did, I found myself running outside to grab bay leaves all the time (I was not at all influenced by Claire Lower). An evergreen shrub, bay can really grow, so it’s worth putting it someplace it has room to expand.

Thyme

Where rosemary is very bold and forward in taste, thyme is delicate and goes with many vegetables and proteins. If you choose the perennial, woodier version of thyme (winter thyme) you should be able to harvest it, yes, through the winter. 

Chives

There are plenty of reasons to grow chives. They are shockingly resilient, and tend to survive winter well. They are architecturally interesting, growing in tall blades until they flower into large puffballs of seeds, like any other allium. Chives can be used raw, and I love using their flowers in my cooking too.

Fennel

Fennel doesn’t like to be planted near anything else. Not a single thing. But there’s a lot to appreciate about it There is both bulbing and non bulbing fennel, and both will spread. You can eat the bulb, obviously, but also make use of the fronds, the seeds, and even the pollen. 

Oregano

If you plant oregano, it will start growing everywhere in your garden—but don’t let that intimidate you. Unlike, say, mint (see below), oregano is easy to pull up. Oregano also flowers beautifully, making it perfect for pollinators, and its scent is intoxicating. 

Sorrel

I was slow to sorrel—it was a gift from a neighbor. But now, one of my favorite things to do on garden tours is give everyone a piece of raw sorrel to try. It is like biting into a lemon. That taste translates whether raw or cooked, and makes the best cream sauce for salmon you’ve ever had.  While it won’t exactly spread, it will clump and grow pretty thickly, so I have to tear out several bunches each year to keep it in check. 

Three perennial herbs to avoid

Here’s what perennial herbs I wouldn’t plant, and it should be noted that I am a dope who has, in fact, planted each of these and lived to regret it. 

• Mint is notorious for spreading, and it does so via underground roots. It’s certainly easy enough to tear out clumps of mint, but you have to be really careful and diligent when doing so, or it will take over. If you do plant it, be sure you pick a mint you really, really like, and keep it in a container, bu—though dollars to donuts, it’s probably busting out of that container. 

• Lovage is growing in my garden because someone gave me some and I was enchanted by the idea you can use the stems as straws. While this is true, lovage doesn’t really have much utility aside from that, and it will grow to be eight feet tall in a year. That’s a lot of lovage. 

• Lemon balm. Just don’t do it. Lemon verbena is delightful. Lemon balm is a garden troll. It will grow to absurd sizes and spread prolifically, and it doesn’t have much utility either. Yes, you can make a tea from it, but that is true of all herbs, and it doesn’t mean the tea is good.