Why the Path Edge Is the Best Place of All

There is a particular pleasure in a cottage garden that no amount of careful planning in a border can quite replicate: the moment you brush past a plant and it answers you with scent. Herbs planted along a path do something quietly clever. They release their oils on contact and again in the warmth of a summer evening, when the sun has been on them all day and the air finally begins to cool. Walk out at nine o'clock to close the gate and the whole path smells of it.

There is a practical argument too. A border along a path is narrow, hot, well-drained and often baked by reflected heat from stone or gravel — exactly the conditions Mediterranean herbs enjoy. The pollinators get a long, uninterrupted ribbon of nectar from early summer into autumn, and you get a supply of leaves within arm's reach of the kitchen door. It is one of the most generous things you can do with three metres of ground.

The Three Essentials: Lavender, Thyme and Rosemary

This trio works because their habits are different enough to layer together. Rosemary gives height and structure, lavender adds midsummer colour and a softer, bushier outline, and thyme knits the whole thing together at the front, spilling onto the path.

• Lavender — choose English lavender rather than the French and Spanish types if you want scent and hardiness. Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote' is compact and intensely fragrant; 'Munstead' is slightly earlier and very free-flowering. Both cope with a UK winter far better than the larger, earlier-flowering stoechas lavenders, which are best treated as short-lived.
• Thyme — common thyme (Thymus vulgaris) for cooking, and creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum) for tumbling over the path edge. Thyme is the plant feet brush most often, and it takes it well. It is also the hardest of the three to kill with drought.
• Rosemary — upright forms such as 'Miss Jessopp's Upright' make a neat informal hedge along a boundary; prostrate forms soften a step or a low wall. Rosemary flowers early, often from March, which makes it invaluable for bees just out of winter.

If you have room for a fourth, add a clump of chives or a sweet bay in a pot at the gate. Both earn their place.

Getting the Soil Right Before Anything Else

Almost every failure with these herbs comes down to drainage. They are not fussy about fertility — in fact, rich soil makes them soft, floppy and short-lived — but they will not tolerate sitting wet through winter. If your soil is heavy clay, this is the one job worth doing properly.

Fork over the strip to a spade's depth and work in a generous amount of horticultural grit, roughly two buckets per square metre on clay, plus some well-rotted compost for structure rather than feeding. If the ground is really stubborn, plant on slight mounds so water runs away from the crowns. Finish with a mulch of gravel or coarse grit around the plants. It looks right in a cottage setting, keeps the foliage clean and dry, and stops the damp rotting the stems in a wet January.

A Planting Plan That Works Along a Cottage Path

Think in three bands rather than a single row. Along the back, if there is a wall, fence or hedge, set rosemary at roughly 75 centimetres apart. In the middle band, plant lavender at 45 to 60 centimetres. At the front, let thyme spread more or less as it pleases, allowing 30 centimetres between plants.

Repeat in groups of three or five rather than dotting singles about — repetition reads as deliberate from the other end of the path, and it looks better in winter when the shapes matter more than the flowers. Leave gaps. A path that is completely smothered stops being a path, and herbs need air moving between them.

Plant in spring or early autumn, water them in well, and then water sparingly for the first summer. Encouraging roots to go down in search of moisture is what makes them drought-proof later.

Pruning, Clipping and the Scent on Your Sleeve

The single rule that keeps lavender alive for a decade is this: cut it back each year, but never into the old, leafless wood, which rarely regrows. Straight after flowering, in late August, take the stems back by about a third, just into this year's soft growth. Rosemary and thyme are more forgiving; give them a light trim in spring once the risk of hard frost has passed, and shear thyme again after flowering to keep it tight and cushion-like.

Keep the clippings. A handful of thyme run between your fingers releases enough oil to scent a whole room, and lavender stems dried in a dark, airy cupboard will perfume linen for months.

Keeping the Border Working Through the Year

Through summer, deadhead lavender to push out a second, lighter flush. In autumn, resist the urge to tidy too hard — leave the seedheads for the birds and the structure for frost to sit on. In very wet winters, a cloche or a sheet of glass over a treasured rosemary can be the difference between survival and a gap in the border.

Come February, cut back hard any shrub that has gone leggy, top-dress the gravel mulch, and wait. By May the path will be humming, and every trip to the bin will cost you a few seconds and reward you with the smell of a summer evening held in the leaves.