Bring Provence into your garden at home; Tips and common sense from our expert.

Byline: Graham Porter

IF YOU have ever been lucky enough to visit the Provence region of France in the height of August, you will know that the atmosphere is heavy with the scent of Lavender and other pungent perennial herbs.

The fragrance is created by the intense light and high summer temperatures that this part of Southern France is renowned for.

The big question for those of us living in the North of England, with its frequent cloud cover, high rainfall and lower temperatures, is how to simulate the Provence region climate to help ensure that our perennial herbs get those intense flavours that are so important when using them in our cooking.

The herbs that I include in this story are rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme, oregano, creeping savory and bay.

Apart from the bay tree, laurus nobilis, which can live for a 100 years and more, all of the other Mediterranean herbs tend to be short lived in our climate, although they will survive for much longer in their natural home.

This means that, to ensure a continuous and healthy supply of foliage for the kitchen, we must propagate from our mother plants and replace them every four to five years.

In selecting a site for these herbs to be planted, your first consideration might be their closeness to your kitchen door for convenience. Forget it unless that part of the garden can provide the essential climatic and soil conditions that they need.

1 Sunshine - the site must have sun directly on it for at least six hours a day in high summer, preferably over the midday period.

The light and heat given by the sun can be exaggerated by light coloured paving, gravel and walls, which reflect the light and then continue to radiate heat back out during the night, further adding to the heat needed to concentrate the essential oils in the plants.

2 Drainage - as these plants often grow on poor, thin, rocky soils and annual rainfall is much lower than ours, it is essential that they are planted in a free draining soil.

This can be created by raised beds, containers or by the incorporation of lots of coarse stone and grit into heavier soils along with a gravel mulch around the neck of each plant to prevent them from standing in wet soil after heavy rain.

3 Soil ph - most of these herbs grow on limestone soils and so, to help keep them happy in their Northern adopted home, you should try to provide a soil that has a ph of at least 7 if not higher.

This is often much easier to achieve in a raised bed or container and these features help to make harvesting of herbs a little easier on the back muscles.

Once you have created the right climatic and soil conditions, it only remains to get the plants into a well-prepared planting hole, give them a good watering to ensure that they root down quickly and then stand back and wait for your first harvest.

In the June article in this series, I will be giving some thought to the herbs that can be used for scent, both in the garden and in the house.

I look forward to hearing from you about [e-mail] your favourite herbs and how you use them in your home.

Write to me at Graham's Garden Herbs, Features Office, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Queen Street South, Huddersfield, HD1 3DU..

CAPTION(S):

* SCENTING SUCCESS: Provence in high summer is laden with the aroma of lavender (above) and of other fragrant herbs such as sage (right) which can be grown in Britain but tends to be shorter lived than those grown in the Mediterranean