Herbs

There is more than one way to think about the category of herbs. The obvious one is that they are used to flavour food. However, in the past, onions and carrots were considered as herbs, yet today, they are definitely vegetables. Also plants like lavender are unconventional flavourings (although I beliee you can use them). The old fashioned herb garden would contain plants that could be used as medicines, or to make scented items such as pot pourri. Rose petals can be used for flavourings, and of course, scent, but roses don't really belong in a modern herb garden. I have an ornamental sage which I have never used as a flavouring because I'm not sure whether it would be safe to! There are also edible flowers like nasturiums (which again, I've not used myself). So all this makes for a confusing definition.

I prefer to say that I have a herb garden, where the plants are (mostly) used to flavour food, and (mostly) are small bushes. They keep their leaves over winter, and they have old wood, and new growth. Use the new growth for flavouring. Prune the new wood, but not back into the old, as I have noticed that old wood doesn't seem to have dormant buds that will produce new growth. There are other herbs which aren't like this. For example, chives grow from bulbs, and some herbs are tender and killed by frost.

Cooking herbs

Ornamental herbs