Most recipes called for leaves or flowers to be brewed into teas or packed into compresses and plasters. Many of the culinary herbs above also doubled as medicinals. In addition is camomile, a stomach tonic par excellance that is eager to grow and takes a good deal of foot traffic in stride. If left to bloom, its small white daisies are used in tea. Perhaps the most popular herbs are those grown for their fragrant oils that have scented everything from bed sheets to underclothes and concentrated into exotic perfumes.
Lavender is by far the most popular and like oregano and rosemary, it prefers a warm dry climate.
In fact, much of the commercial lavender is grown in the sunny south of France. With many varieties now being used as landscape plants, it's simple to add this fragrant staple to every well drained garden. Second only to lavender is the clan of scented geraniums, the predecessors of the modern zonal and ivy geranium bedding plants. There are literally dozens of varieties of old fashioned scented geraniums to choose from that contain a hint of other fragrances. Rose geraniums actually smell like old fashioned roses and you'll find other groups that mimic the scents of apricot, mint, filbert nuts, lavender, camphor, lemon and apple.