Growing Herbs Together in a Kitchen Courtyard

A courtyard is a herb garden waiting to happen

Few spots suit culinary herbs better than a small paved courtyard. Walls and fences hold warmth into the evening, flagged or gravel ground bounces light back onto the plants, and the shelter keeps tender leaves out of biting wind. Even a space barely two metres square can produce more rosemary, thyme and oregano than most households can reasonably use between them.

The trick is to grow the right herbs together and to keep the awkward ones apart. Group the sun-loving, drought-tolerant Mediterranean types in free-draining pots on the warmest side, and treat mint as the exception it is — a thirsty, thuggish spreader that will happily swamp everything in reach if you let it share a container.

Start with the sun-lovers

Rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage and winter savory all come from similar hillside conditions: blazing sun, poor stony ground, sharp drainage and very little kindness. They want at least six hours of direct sun, ideally including the fierce early afternoon stretch. In a courtyard, that usually means the wall that faces south or south-west.

Grown in these conditions together, they look after one another. Their foliage forms a dense mat that shades the compost surface, cutting evaporation, and their shared dislike of wet roots means you can water the whole group on the same schedule. Rosemary gives height at the back, thyme spills over a pot edge, oregano fills the middle ground.

• Rosemary — upright or trailing, needs the largest pot of the group and the sharpest drainage
• Thyme — common, lemon or creeping varieties all work; happiest in lean compost and full sun
• Oregano — spreads willingly and will trail over a rim; cut back hard after flowering
• Sage — broader leaves, slightly more forgiving of shade but still prefers the warm spot

Pots, compost and drainage

Use unglazed terracotta where you can. It breathes, it dries out faster than glazed or plastic, and that is exactly what these herbs want. Aim for pots of at least 30cm across for rosemary and sage, 20 to 25cm for thyme and oregano. Put a generous layer of broken crocks or gravel in the base, then a mix of two parts peat-free multipurpose compost to one part horticultural grit. A loam-based compost with grit added also works well and holds its structure for longer.

Stand every pot on feet or bricks so water drains freely and air moves underneath. Never let pots sit in a saucer of standing water — root rot is the single most common way to lose a courtyard rosemary over winter.

When you water, water thoroughly until it runs out of the drainage holes, then leave it alone until the top couple of centimetres of compost are dry. Little and often is the wrong approach here: it keeps the roots shallow and the compost permanently damp.

Keep mint strictly separate

Mint breaks every rule above. It likes moisture, tolerates part shade, spreads by underground runners and will colonise a shared pot within a single season, smothering slower companions. Give it its own container, always, and be generous with the size — a 30cm pot for a single plant is not excessive.

Mint also benefits from being sunk to its rim in a cool corner, or at least kept out of the hottest sun. Where it sits in a pot above ground, the roots bake and the plant sulks, so group it with parsley, chives and chervil rather than the Mediterranean brigade. If you want several mints, pot them separately too; spearmint and applemint will happily outgrow each other.

Harvest often, and the plants will bush out

The most common mistake in a courtyard herb collection is being too timid with the scissors. Regular picking is what turns a leggy, sparse plant into a compact, productive one.

• Pinch soft tips of basil, mint and oregano just above a pair of leaves — two new shoots will break from that point
• Trim rosemary lightly and often through spring and summer, never cutting back into old, leafless wood
• Shear thyme after flowering to keep it tight and prevent the woody, gappy centre that ruins older plants
• Stop mint flowering by picking the tips weekly; once it runs to flower the leaves toughen and the flavour turns medicinal
• Take no more than a third of any plant at once, and give it a fortnight to recover

A mid-summer cut on oregano and mint, taken back to about 10cm, will produce a fresh flush of tender growth within three weeks and keeps the plants young.

Watering, feeding and getting them through winter

In high summer, courtyard pots may need water once a day, sometimes twice in a heatwave, because reflected heat dries compost fast. Feed sparingly — a weak liquid feed every fortnight from April to August is plenty. Overfeeding rosemary, thyme and oregano produces lush, soft growth with diluted flavour, which defeats the point of growing them.

In early autumn, tidy the group, remove any yellowing foliage and move pots against the house wall for shelter. Cut back on watering sharply from October, but do not let the compost go bone dry. Thyme and sage are usually hardy enough to stay out; rosemary in a small pot is more vulnerable to a wet, cold winter than to frost itself, so raise it onto feet, keep rain off the compost surface if you can, and consider moving it under cover during the wettest weeks. With drainage sorted and a bit of shelter, a well-grown courtyard herb collection will crop for years.