(Chives, Cultivated Chives, Garden Chives)

Most know only know chives as a chopped herb sprinkled on salads or added to cream cheese for mild onion flavor and green color, but chives are much more than that. This lovely bulbous perennial produces a bottle brush of fine, cylindrical foliage in spring and becomes topped with beautiful lavender-pink, sometimes white, clover-like flowerheads in late spring or early summer. It is a far-flung and diverse onion that’s native across much of the northern hemisphere, so it has been historically used...

(Chinese Chives)

There are lots of reasons to love and hate garlic chives, also called Chinese chives. On the upside, they’re easy to grow, attractive and delicious to eat. The downside is they're impossibly invasive if one doesn't remove their flower heads before they set and drop seed. Each seedhead produces copious amounts of viable, black, wedge-shaped seeds that germinate fast. You’ll be weeding baby garlic chives out of every garden nook and cranny. The plants originate from Southwest China but have become...

(Dill)

The fragrant and distinctive smell of dill brings to mind everything from dill pickles to summer salads and gravad lox. Dill is an annual Eurasian field plant that is quite short-lived but very easy to grow. It's a versatile culinary herb; the seeds are used in pickling and lacy leaves can be chopped and used to season salads, vegetables or fish. In the wild, it favors open, disturbed sites and has become naturalized in several countries, including much of North America.

Dill germinates in...

(Dwarf Dill, Fernleaf Dill)

The neat, compact 'Fernleaf' dill is shorter than most and has lots of bright green, airy foliage that's highly aromatic. The lacy leaves are very dense, so this is a great cultivar for dillweed lovers, but its seeds are equally fragrant and great for pickling.

The fragrant and distinctive smell of dill brings to mind everything from dill pickles to summer salads and gravad lox. Dill is an annual Eurasian field plant that is quite short-lived but very easy to grow. It's a versatile culinary...

(Dill, Mammoth Dill)

This is one big dill! 'Mammoth' is a large, aromatic cultivar with finely divided blue-green leaves and a stately form. It is ideal for sizable vegetable gardens and even has a place in early season butterfly borders.

The fragrant and distinctive smell of dill brings to mind everything from dill pickles to summer salads and gravad lox. Dill is an annual Eurasian field plant that is quite short-lived but very easy to grow. It's a versatile culinary herb; the seeds are used in pickling and lacy...

(Dill)

The tall, sturdy dill cultivar, 'Vierling', has fine, blue-green foliage and blooms early, so its a great selection for dill seed. Both its foliage and seeds are touted to be extra fragrant and delicious.

The fragrant and distinctive smell of dill brings to mind everything from dill pickles to summer salads and gravad lox. Dill is an annual Eurasian field plant that is quite short-lived but very easy to grow. It's a versatile culinary herb; the seeds are used in pickling and lacy leaves can...

(Angelica, Archangel)

An old-fashioned Eurasian garden herb, angelica was used to make medicinal tinctures and oils before the dawn of modern medicine. To this day this fragrant, earthy herb is still used to flavor the favorite French liqueur, Cointreau. A member of the carrot family, it is also ornamental in its own right producing large greenish umbels of flowers over large, herbaceous plants. Wild populations can be found growing along stream and river banks in alpine regions across Europe and Asia.

The coarsely...

(Chervil, French Chervil)

The lush, green, fern-like foliage of chervil has the flavor of parsley and anise and bears airy umbels of white flowers in summer. This fast growing annual forms a lush, mounded clump of upright, leafy stems when temperatures are cool and mild. It is native to Europe and western Asia where its greens are used to flavor many dishes. In fact, it is best known as a component of the classic French herb mixture, fines herbes, which also contains chives, parsley, tarragon and marjoram, among others.

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(French Tarragon)

The fragrant leaves of tarragon lend herbal sweetness to vegetables, salads and meats. Native from Europe to western North America, it is a clump-forming, shrubby perennial herb that's sun-loving and quite easy to grow. It is related to wormwood and absinthe and a member of the sunflower family, Asteraceae.

The aromatic, green, strap-like leaves of tarragon appear in spring, when they are at their sweetest. In summer insignificant clusters of yellowish white flowers may be produced. Stems of...

(Borage)

Old fashioned and pretty, borage is an easy-to-grow herb grown for its edible and attractive starry blue flowers that taste like cucumber. The European native germinates in spring and develops into a moderate sized bushy plant with large, distinctly prickly, hairy leaves. Only six weeks after germination, borage bears loose clusters of five-petaled, star-shaped blue flowers with white centers and black stamens. These are a delight to bees.

Sun and fertile garden soil will make this old-fashioned...