Theme gardens are very popular. They are a tangible expression of someone’s passion or interest and are usually quite fascinating. While many people are motivated to create inviting hummingbird or butterfly gardens, others enjoy peaceful water gardens or playful children’s gardens.
The options are endless. With some skill and determination, one can design an enjoyable theme garden that is based on their own interests.
Theme gardens are intentional places where all of the landscaping elements support a single purpose. By using a combination of composition, mass, texture and color along with strategic landscaping and hardscaping elements, one can strongly portray a single idea. Plants are carefully selected and placed for either their ornamental, edible or medicinal value. Accessories and hardware such as plant containers, supports, statuary and other art and accents communicate and compliment the theme.
If you ever have the opportunity to visit a theme garden that is really well done, you won’t forget it. The best ones are usually not at public, botanical parks or sprawled across large spaces. You will find these little gems tucked away in the yards of people who are passionate people, hobby gardeners, avid readers or who just enjoy creating fun spaces. These gardens not only take some knowledge and skill to design but also a little bit of artistic flare.
One of my favorite themed gardens is a tea garden—for all the reasons! Tea gardens are full of herbs and flowers that are used to create delicious herbal teas, and since most of them can be used for both culinary and medicinal purposes, you get a lot of mileage out of growing them. Here are a few other reasons why I think growing your own tea garden is a great idea:
1) You can control the quality of your ingredients. When making your own herbal tea blends, it is important to use high-quality plant material. If you must purchase your ingredients online, it won’t take you very long to discover that, oftentimes, they are not of the highest quality. Growing your own gives you the control to decide if you are going to use herbicides or pesticides, what varieties you prefer, when you harvest, how you clean and store your herbs and flowers as well as other factors.
2) You can decide the volume—how much you want to grow. Based on your needs, you can determine if a small spot on your patio will do or if you need to utilize a larger garden space. There’s no reason to grow more than what you want or need. If you grow too much, it becomes work instead of pleasure.
3) You can customize your own blends. When you blend your own herbal teas, you can make them just like you want. Simply add more of what you love or need and leave out the ingredients that are less desirable to you. Growing your own allows you the ability to create perfect-for-you blends!
4) Doing it yourself is much cheaper. Where you would spend dollars gathering herbal tea ingredients online, you will spend pennies gathering them from the garden.
5) You can create your own work of art. By using plants, colors, tea cups and pots, ironwork, signs, trellises and other pieces of garden art, you can grow a tea-inspired space that is fun to be in and exciting to share with others.
6) You are not limited to drinking only dried herbal tea blends that come in tea bags. Part of the beauty of growing a tea garden is drinking fresh herbal blends throughout the seasons. If you enjoy eating through the seasons, you will love drinking tea through them. If you’ve never enjoyed a cup of fresh herbal tea strait from the garden, you are really missing out!
While you’re planning your spring gardening projects, why not consider growing your own tea garden? You might have to apply yourself a bit and possibly even learn some new things. But, God has given us good minds and means to please and glorify Him with our work. His Word will always prove to be true. “In all labor there is profit” (Prov. 14:23).