Chervil

An Old World cottage-garden annual grown for daisy- to chrysanthemum-like flowerheads (3 to 4 inches across) in bright yellow through deep orange, often with a contrasting darker center disk. In cool climates it blooms over a long summer-to-fall window; in hot summers it tends to languish and may need a midseason cutback to rebloom. The somewhat bitter flowers and lance-shaped aromatic leaves are edible, and the petals lend color to soups, rice, and baked goods.

Society garlic (Tulbaghia violacea) is a clump-forming perennial herb from South Africa grown for its long season of small, star-shaped lilac-pink flowers, carried in airy umbels on slender stems well above narrow, grassy, grey-green leaves from late spring into autumn. The foliage is garlic-scented, and the leaves and flowers are edible, used like garlic chives in South African cooking - the friendly name comes from its milder, more sociable garlic breath. It is an easy, drought-tolerant, long-flowering choice for sunny borders, edging, and containers, and a reliable bee and butterfly plant. Native to the Cape provinces and KwaZulu-Natal, it is reasonably hardy (to about USDA zone 7 with sharp drainage) but can be cut back or lost in a hard winter, and the garlic scent is reputed to deter some insect pests and even moles. RHS gives Tulbaghia violacea (and the cultivar 'Silver Lace') its Award of Garden Merit and rates it half-hardy (H3).

A tender perennial herb in the aster family (Asteraceae), grown for its remarkably sweet leaves - per the Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder the foliage contains glucoside compounds and tastes notably sweeter than sugar with no calories, which is why it is also called sweetleaf. Native to Brazil and Paraguay, it forms weak, floppy stems to 12 to 24 inches tall clothed in oblong, toothed leaves, with small showy white flowers in July and August. Winter hardy only in USDA zones 10-11; across most of North America it is grown as an annual or overwintered indoors, and leaves are best harvested before flowering.

A warm-weather annual of the carrot family grown in herb gardens for two distinct crops from one plant: the lacy, strong-scented foliage harvested young as cilantro, and the aromatic dried seed harvested as coriander. The plant bolts and flowers quickly in hot weather, throwing up showy white-to-pale-lavender umbels and a marked leaf dimorphism - broad scalloped lower leaves give way to fine, thread-like upper foliage on the flowering stems. Fast and easy from a direct sowing, it is best succession-planted for a steady leaf harvest before heat triggers bolting.

A low woody herb for sunny edges, between pavers, and herb-garden borders with pollinator-friendly summer flowers.

A low, drought-loving Mediterranean herb grown for its woolly silver-grey rosettes of soft, felted leaves and its stiff summer spikes of small, soft-yellow flowers cupped in densely woolly bracts - the plant known as Greek mountain tea or ironwort. It is a tough alpine and rock-garden subject that wants hot, dry, very sharply drained ground and full sun, and rots in wet or rich soil; it is only borderline hardy. POWO (Kew) records Sideritis syriaca as native to the eastern Mediterranean - Crete, the Levant, and Türkiye. The dried leaves and flower spikes make the traditional caffeine-free Greek herbal infusion long valued as a folk remedy for colds and coughs, so it is parts-edible as a tea but is grown as a herb rather than a food crop. The soft-yellow summer spikes are a good bee plant.