by Emma Cooper

Created on: September 11, 2007

There are many excellent well-known perennial herbs bay, rosemary, lavender, mints and many others will earn their keep in the long term.

If you want to expand your herb garden, there are also many lesser-known perennial herbs to consider.

Sorrel is easily grown from seed and thrives in most soils and partial shade. Its large leaves have an acidic, lemony flavor that adds zing to salads, omelets and fish sauces.

Good King Henry is a very hardy plant that provides vitamin-rich leaves, for use as spinach, early in the year. The flower shoots are also edible and can be used like asparagus.

Lemon balm is very easy to grow. A relative of mint, it can be invasive and needs to be kept under control particularly as it self-seeds if allowed to. However, it is worth a space in the garden because the leaves can be made into a delicious and calming herbal tea. There are also several very attractive varieties, including a golden-leaved variety and a variegated one.

Vietnamese cilantro, also known as Vietnamese mint, is a perennial alternative for people who find regular cilantro hard to grow. It tastes and smells like cilantro (although it looks different), but is much more drought tolerant.

Welsh onions are clumping onions that can provide onion leaves and bulbs in all but the coldest weather. They have a flavor somewhere between that of chives and bulb onions and look like overgrown salad onions. Very easy to grow, they develop large white flowers in summer that bees love but these should be removed before the set seed as Welsh onions happily self-seed throughout the garden.

These long-term herbs are all useful in the kitchen, but there are many other perennial herbs that are useful in other ways. For example, soapwort is grown for the natural cleansers it produces that can be used as an alternative to soap.

When you're planning an herb garden, it's worth taking a little time to investigate which perennial herbs will be useful to you.

Learn more about this author, Emma Cooper.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.