Herbs are the wonderful ingredient that really makes our food sing. Not only this, they have fantastic medicinal properties and they’re great for wildlife too.

Located just next to our outdoor landscaping area, you’ll find a vast selection of different herb plants to grow at home, on the allotment or even on your windowsill.

Let’s start with the basics. No herb garden is complete the indulgent purple flowers of lavender. The herb is versatile – both as a culinary ingredient and for soaps, oils and more. We have a large selection of both lavender and thyme – with many varieties to choose from in our herb plant section.

Another effortless herb for any balcony or windowsill herb collection is Applemint. With a wonderful flavour, as its name suggests, Applemint is ideal for adding to those late summer cocktails. You can harvest this herb from May until October. And try bush basil, with its full mane of foliage, not only will it add the perfect touch to your Italian dishes, it has a stunning form, too. If grown indoors, basil can provide right through the year.

After more of a challenge? The next selection of herbs is trickier to grow.

Try Angelica in your beds and borders this year. A relative of carrots and parsley, this plant is for the more advanced herb lover, as it flowers every other year – yet, it’s the perfect herb if you love to infuse spirits. Angelica’s stems – tasting a little like celery – can be cooked to add a lovely flavour to food.

Hyssop is often used as a medicinal plant, however it can also be used to flavour a variety of foods. By including these less well-known herbs into your herb gardens, you can experiment with a whole palette of new flavours.

Are you a keen baker? We recommend caraway, another less common herb. The plant’s fragrant seeds, ready in the Autumn, make a brilliant topper for any fresh bread and desserts.  

Whilst not all of us have the space to grow our own vegetables and fruits – herbs are the ideal adaptable plant for placing onto kitchen windowsills. In fact, it is often better to have culinary herbs closer to your kitchen, as this is where they will be at their freshest.

Many of the herbs on offer here at Almondsbury are also perennial – meaning that they’ll keep providing you with tasty and beneficial leaves for several years. You will find our herb section next to our outdoor plant area, just a short walk away from the main shop.