Growing Herbs in Pots on a Shady Patio

Shade is an opportunity, not a compromise

Most of the advice about growing herbs assumes a sunny, south-facing patio with pots baking in six hours of direct light. If that is not what you have, take heart. A north-facing courtyard, a passage between two houses, the narrow paved strip beneath a kitchen window that catches sun only until eleven in the morning — these are perfectly good places to grow a useful, generous herb garden.

The key is to choose plants that evolved in the same conditions. Rosemary, thyme, oregano and lavender come from hot, dry, stony hillsides; in shade they sulk, go leggy and rot at the root. Mint, parsley and chives come from damp woodland edges and meadow ground, where light is dappled and the soil stays cool. Give them a shady patio and they will often do better than they would in full sun.

Which herbs genuinely crop in lower light

Aim for leaf production rather than flowers or seed, and you have a good range to work with.

• Mint — spearmint, Moroccan mint and apple mint are the most shade-tolerant of the lot. They will crop in almost full shade, though flavour is strongest with two or three hours of gentle morning sun.
• Parsley — flat-leaved and curly both cope well. Less sun means softer, more tender leaves and far less of a rush to bolt in a hot July.
• Chives — including garlic chives, which give you a second, later harvest of flat leaves and edible white flowers.
• Chervil, sorrel, lovage, lemon balm, sweet cicely and wild rocket — all reliable shade performers, and lovage and sweet cicely bring height to a corner where nothing else will grow.
• Coriander and basil — worth a try, but expect smaller leaves and a tendency to run to seed. Sow little and often rather than once.

Generous containers and a compost that holds moisture

Shade usually means damp, and small pots in damp shade are a recipe for stagnant roots. Go bigger than you think you need. A mint plant wants a container of at least 10 to 15 litres; parsley and chives are happy in 5 to 7 litres, but choose a deep pot for parsley, which sends down a long taproot. Width helps, depth helps more.

Terracotta looks lovely but dries out fast in a sunny spell and cracks in frost. Glazed ceramic, plastic or a wooden planter lined with a permeable membrane all hold moisture more evenly. Whatever you use, make sure there are proper drainage holes, and stand the pots on feet or bricks so water can escape freely.

For the compost, mix a peat-free multipurpose with roughly a fifth by volume of horticultural grit or perlite, then stir through a couple of handfuls of garden compost or leafmould. That gives you a mix that stays evenly moist but never sits wet. Finish with a 2cm layer of gravel on the surface: it slows evaporation, keeps liverwort at bay and makes life harder for slugs.

One rule matters more than any other: give mint a pot of its own. Its roots run, and it will smother everything else in a shared container within a season.

Watering: evenly moist, never waterlogged

The summary on the seed packet — keep moist — is easy to get wrong in both directions. In shade, compost dries more slowly, so you will water less often than a sunny patio, but you must still check. Push a finger two centimetres into the compost, or lift the pot and judge by weight. A pot that feels light needs water; a pot that feels heavy and smells sour needs you to leave it alone.

• Water in the morning where you can, so surplus drains away before the cool of evening.
• Use a saucer to catch run-off, but empty it an hour later — especially after rain. Roots sitting in water rot, and the damp surface attracts sciarid flies and algae.
• In a warm dry spell, a large mint pot may need water twice a day; in a wet October, once a fortnight.
• Rainwater from a butt is kinder than tap water, which is alkaline in many parts of the UK and can yellow the leaves of parsley over time.

Feeding, cutting and keeping pots productive

Herbs grown for leaves need steady, modest feeding rather than a rich diet. From April to September, give a balanced liquid feed at half the recommended strength every fortnight — a tomato feed works well for parsley and chives, which appreciate the extra potassium.

Harvesting is what keeps these plants going. Cut chives down to about 2cm from the compost and they will regrow within a fortnight; never take more than a third of a parsley plant's outer leaves at once, always working from the outside in. Pinch the tips of mint regularly to keep it bushy rather than straggly, and remove any flower buds on parsley the moment you see them. Every spring, tip mint out of its pot, split the rootball with a knife and repot the healthiest section in fresh compost.

Through the year on a shady patio

Chives die back with the first hard frost and reappear in March. Parsley is biennial — it will run to seed in its second spring, so sow a fresh pot each autumn to keep a supply coming. Mint will die down to nothing in winter, which is normal; keep the pot out of standing water and it will return strongly. Chervil and flat-leaved parsley will stand through a mild winter and give you leaves when little else is growing.

Lift pots onto feet in November so winter rain drains freely, and refresh the top 5cm of compost each March rather than repotting everything. Do that, and a shady patio will quietly outproduce a sunny windowsill for most of the year.