Basil is an annual but a fast and easy grower. We have clay soil that I have amended over the years. Sage survives our climate, as does oregano and thyme

That all depends on where you garden. My easiest would be bay and rosemary because they are tough permanent shrubs/trees which require no care at all, live for many years and have no pests. After that I would say anything perennial e.g fennel, oregano and chives are self sowing quasi-weeds. Basil on the other hand is very tricky for me because we just don't get sufficient heat for it to be happy. I always end up having to grow it under glass where it gets whitefly. And I have never in all my years gardening managed to grow dill successfully. I'm linking to a picture I've shared before of my neighbour's bay tree. (It's bigger now!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Bay tree

Oddly enough, it took about 4-5 tries for me to get peppermint to grow. For me it is not the world-consuming, uber-plant. It grows, but not uncontrollable so.

While I grow some culinary herbs, I grow many more medicinals. I like the native medicinal plants best but not all I plant are native plants. And while I do harvest from some of my garden plants, any that requires me to harvest roots to use are as a rule safe.

While I do take pictures in my gardens, my favorite places to take pictures are in Mother Nature's gardens - the forests and other wild, natural beauty places. Since those are my favorites, I'll share a picture I took on a hike at a local bog and preserve. It features indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), goldthread (Coptis trifolia), and canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense). And while I DO NOT advocate harvesting this wild beauties, these plants all have medicinal herbal uses. Enjoy!

FataMorgana

How interesting, FataMorgana!

the lavender is absolutely gorgeous - have tried several times and have a couple of pitifuly plants now but it is too humid here in South Al. Why do we always want to grow something that is wrong for our area???? I do have bee balm, several mints, lemon grass, several types of thyme, oregeno, chives, basil, dill, lemon balm. Thanks for sharing your pictures - I haven't learned how to do that yet.

ameliad -

The following is a thread I wrote about how to post your pictures.

Greg
Southern Nevada

I thought that I'd post a quick little tutorial on how to embed your pictures in your posts on the forums here at GW. I wish it could be a sticky note but that's not possible.
I feel that it's almost imperative to post pictures to assist in describing whatever problem you may be having with your plants. Everyday you read where someone writes something to the effect: "The leaves on my squash are turning brown, what could be the problem?" A picture would help those who are "trying to help you" identify what the problem could be.

Everyone today has a digital camera that they use to take snaps of their families - vacations - etc. To view them you most often download them to your computer so you already have half the battle won. To get them to the point of putting them here on GW is as follows:

First they must be uploaded to a photo hosting site. I use Photobucket as it's extremely simple and is free so I'll use them as an example. Once you sign-up and become a member you need to upload the pictures you want to post in to Photobucket. Create an album and assign it whatever name you want to call it, say "Garden." You'll see a button in the center of the screen called "Upload Images And Videos." Click on that button and a small window will open that has the contents of your computer in it. You want to go to wherever you keep your pictures and select the ones you want to post in GW. Then hit the "Open" button and the pictures will begin to upload to your album in Photobucket. Once they're there it's easy to put them in your post. Just go to the picture you want and hold your cursor over it. This will open a drop-down window below your picture that has various codes:

Email & IM
Direct Link
HTML Code
IMG Code

Highlight the HTML Code, press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard while you press the letter C. This cuts the HTML code that you need to put your picture in your post. Now go to the message you want to post in GW. Put your cursor in your message body where you want to place the picture. Now you want to Paste the HTML Code in your message. To do this you press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and then hit the letter V. This will place the code in your message body. To check and see your picture push the "Preview Message" button and there it is.

So now you know how to post pictures in your posts on GW. If you're having a problem with your plants and want some help, go out and snap a picture or two. This will greatly help others who wish to help you and make sure that you're getting the most accurate help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photobucket

Up here in Minnesota, "Walker's" Catsmint will overthrow a garden within a few years! My black cat loves the stuff though. But I did start some Sage Officianalus by seed and transplanted it, and it has thrived! I can't believe how well its doing!
However, Rosemary (my favorite herb) hasn't taken off as well. Also, the fact that my neighbor stole one didn't help with it growing, but such is life.
Overall, Sage and Basil thrive and Rosemary is a slow grower.

Rhizo_1 - Glad you liked it!

Sandhill_farms-

If you are building instructions to post or create a FAQ with, your instructions are for Windows users only. For Mac users the instructions are basically the same as given but the keys to cut and paste are different. The ctrl-c and ctrl-v key sequences to copy and paste are for Windows users. While Mac users use command-C to copy and command-V to paste. On older macs (and with older mac users!) the "command" key is also know as the "apple" key.

You can update or not - as you choose. But I thought you might like to know.

FataMorgana

Yes, fatamorgana I'm aware of that. Thanks

Greg
Southern Nevada

Dill, fennel, chives and oregano are the easiest because they self-sow and become almost a nuisance. Basil has produced self-sown volunteers for me, but not the Genovese kind.

I have successfully wintersown quite a bit of lavender.

Rosemary and thyme are the most difficult, whether it's a matter of poor seed or what, but I get terrible germination. Also, thyme never overwinters for me.

Salvia has been difficult in terms of germination, but on the other hand the surviving plants thrive like mad for years.

Parsley is a mixed bag -- some years it's a cinch, others I've had to buy plants because I had such poor production. Once in a while it has overwintered for me, but not consistently.

Thanks for the interesting responses. Ameliad- It is funny that people always want to grow things that don't do well for our area. I see that same thing on the rose forums :)

As for the pictures, if you have a mouse with a right click, you can right click the photobucket IMG code, and hit copy...then go to the GW page and right click the mouse again, and hit paste.

If you want to put the picture in with the text, paste it on the page, then take off the first [IMG] and replace it with At the end, there is a /[IMG] Take all that off and put >

I just had someone help me with this...and once you get used to it, it's really easy.

My easiest are lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, chamomile, oregano, mint and bay. This has been the season for Mediterranean herbs as it's been plenty HOT and there's been little rain.

Thanks so much for this post!

One down and many to go. I have been trying to replace many of the plants that I had in my gardens but unfortunately never gave second thought to what they were called and now I know what at least one of them was. Bee Balm.

I never used to have problems growing anything and never really paid too much attention to them. the first herb gardens I ever had used to just appear, even annuals. They grew so fast and full I was certain they were weeds and was ready to rip them all out when someone stopped me. Many of the plants followed me around from place to place for years and just grew wherever I planted them.

Unfortunately this year nothing seems to be doing well at all. Everything poked their heads out of the dirt and bolted.

Many years ago I tried growing herbs in cute, little clay pots that had the herb names molded right onto the sides of the pots. I had terrible luck, so after a few tries I gave up. I decided that herbs were just too difficult to grow.

Fast forward to this spring. I am growing (quite effortlessly) thyme, parsley, sage, dill, chives, tarragon, marjoram, rosemary and the star performer of all, basil.

I am still growing them in pots, but I'm using large rectangular plastic containers that are fairly deep (I read somewhere that parsley really needs room to send down roots.) I also have them where they get morning sun and only filtered sun in the afternoon.

The basil is blowing me away because as I mentioned I had such trouble growing it before. Nowadays I have more than I know what to do with because I found out quite by accident how easy it is to propogate from cuttings. I like to bring in several stems for handy use in the kitchen and I keep them in a vase so they'll stay fresh. One time I didn't use them for awhile. Imagine my surprise to find they'd grown roots while in the water. I transplanted the rooted cuttings expecting them to die, but they didn't -they flourished. Fascinating!

The only herb I haven't done well with is Cilantro but I think I started it too late in spring and it definitely didn't like summer. I just sowed some seeds yesterday to see if I can do better in cooler weather.

Forgot to add that I'm going to try growing borage. Is that a picky herb? What advice can you give me? I'm also going to try chamomile which I've heard can be a difficult one.

Borage - no not picky at all. Easy to grow from seed and then you'll have it for ever as it will self seed all over. Never grown chamomile as I'm not a fan of herb teas.

Thx, flora_uk. Nice to know that borage is one of the easy ones. BTW, I'm not a huge fan of chamomile either, but I read that it is a beneficial companion plant so thought I'd give it a try.