What is an herb spiral?
A herb spiral is a design concept frequently employed in permaculture design, incorporating the specific cultural needs of various herbs through its intentional layout. The clever design takes advantage of vertical growing, gravity, and the distinct growing requirements of various types of herbs. The result is an effective, efficient, and compact herb garden that makes the best use of sunlight, water, and space.
Herb spirals are a type of raised garden bed built in the shape of a spiral. The centre of the bed is higher than the rest of the garden spiral layers, which circle down to ground level.
This design means that while one side is full sun the other side has a more shaded protected growing space.
Also, the water will drain from the top to the bottom section. Quite often people will put a small pond in here or plants that love a moist or boggy location. Your herb spiral can be made from natural materials such as rock, stone, timber, and bricks.
How to make an herb spiral:
- Choose a sunny spot.
- Dig over and weed a flat area or if being built on lawn place down cardboard flat.
- Use a single layer of brick, stone or timber to lay out the shape of the spiral. While there’s no set size for herb spirals, a size of 1.5m wide and 1m high allows for easy maintenance and harvesting.
- Make sure that the outer end of the spiral is on the south side of the garden bed - this will create a shady microclimate where there is the most moisture.
- Add more layers to the spiral so the height gradually increases towards the centre.
- Add a layer of gravel or scoria at the base of the garden to improve drainage, try Rocky Point Blue Steel Garden Stone.
- If desired, dig a small pond lined with pebbles at the bottom end of the spiral to capture excess water.
- Fill the spiral with good quality soil like Rocky Point Organic Health Garden Soil, or a mixture of Rocky Point Garden Soil and ActivGrow Soil Improver organic compost.
- Plant the garden with herbs according to their preferred microclimate.
- Water well and mulch with Rocky Point Sugar Cane Mulch.