What herbs would you recommend for a spot that gets sun only until 1-2 pm and then no more? They will get sun by about 6-7 am in high summer, so they will get near full-sun treatment in terms of hours - just early in the day.....

What would you plant here? What would you not plant here?

Thanks!

I need to get some lovage - I will put that in the back row there. The stairs max height is about 4'....

question through - does lovage die down completely each year and start from scratch like asparagus? It may take too long for it to get sun in the spring/summer....

I have wild ginger in the "woodland" garden on the east side of my house where it only gets early morning sun. A big old crabapple tree there provides the shade and copious leaf litter to do a fare approximation of a woodland. I have bloodroot, jack-in-the-pulpit, solomons seal, goldenseal, black cohosh, blue cohosh, twinleaf, trout lily, white baneberry, and more in that garden. While many/most plants I mentioned are native medicinal plants, they are not intended for culinary use - with the exception of wild ginger that I mentioned first. That can be eaten as well as used medicinally. While they are beauties, just take care if you mix any medicinal herbs in with your culinary ones.

FataMorgana

This will be an off shoot of the main herbal garden which will be L shaped around a new hardscape area where the table and grill will be:

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not sure if this helps at all, but x are existing sidewalks.

The small herbal area for this is about 2x5-6 feet, with the back area s exposure is blocked by the stairs up to about 4' so was thinking lovage may work....and I need decending height.....

Maybe lovage in the back....then sage? towards the bottom, many choices.

What are the tallest of the culinary herbs? annual would be ok too, but would like about 50% perennials....how would winter savory fit into this.....off to check packet info!

Wickipedia says winter savory can get to 7.5 feet! maybe this would go behind the lovage!

also - as a subshrub - thinking it would retain it's branching, thus being high enough to get sun over a longer period of time than lovage which would need to grow 4 feet or wait for the angle of the sun to not be blocked by the stairs.....I'm thinking this happens in may.....not sure, will check this year!

so - right now I'm thinking winter savory - lovage - sage down in the row....so likely 6-7' 5-6' 3' and at the bottom around the sage put some chives and maybe plant some nasturtiums....

so - green with white flowers - bright green leaves - grey green with lavender flowers, then the chives - will put 1-2 clumps each of regular and garlic chives about so the white and purple flowers are echoed.....

Simple - not a lot of splash - but attractive and serviceable. Thinking no on the nasturtiums now - I like this simple color scheme here....

Any problems I'm not seeing?

Thanks!!!

Just measured the area - from the steps to the sidewalk, it is 31 inches, and the length is about 5.5-5.75 feet. BUT - the area underneath the stairs is dirt, and at the house level is an enclosed mud room of about 6x6 that there is no basement there and so is dirt below, so the roots of the plants have much more space available to them, especially the one place against the house. Above the stairs is open space, then a simple handrail, so the herbs can bush out a few inches there, and a few inches into the path, and that would allow for a 3' spread.

Is that enough? I assume I can cut back on these a bit if they overreach?

I will try to get one of the kids to help me with the image situation...

The smaller basils would make a nice edging.