Grow Herbs

The answer to the apparently simple question “What is an herb?” is more complicated than you might think. The Royal Horticultural Society’s definition of an herb, according to its Dictionary of Gardening, is “a plant of which the stem dies to the ground at the end of the season.” This definition seems to me too narrow, considering that some plants I regard as herbs, like bay (Laurus nobilis), are evergreen, so I prefer the explanation given in the Oxford English Dictionary, where the term “herb” is applied to plants of which the leaves or stem and leaves are used for medicine, or for their scent or flavor.