Chamomile for borders and paths

Chamaemelum nobile 'Treneague'

Treneague Chamomile is a dwarf variety with a mass of springy, mid-green fragrant foliage that flourishes all year round without the complications of flowers or a season off. Each plant will spread up to 40 cm maintaining an even height of finely divided, fronded leaves that knit together. The leaves are highly scented, especially if you brush past or tread on them and they are a top favourite for wildlife in your garden. If you don't want a herb lawn, or the scent sends you to sleep too soon, then take a look at the rest of our collection of herbs for sale.

An alternative lawn

If you have ever wanted a mow-free lawn, then this Chamomile is where you begin. Each plant forms a springy, scented mat that interweaves with the next plant to form a bouncy, green carpet which lasts throughout the year. As a consequence it makes a fine lawn providing solid, green coverage where there is only light pedestrian traffic or acts as a soft, flouncy border edging whose grassy scent will waft up to you as you brush past. Chamomile is also good for a rockery garden: clear a little patch of stones and plant so that it forms its own little cushion of green amongst the rocks.

Although easy to grow, you do need to provide a sunny spot if you want to avoid bald spots - a little dappled shade will also suffice - and a light soil with no stones that drains easily. Heavy clay will just be too wet in winter and too dry in summer for a chamomile lawn to really work. Prepare the site well and make sure that you have removed any other competing weeds before planting your chamomile plants. Once settled in and unlike grass, where the growing point is at the bottom of the plant so that mowing encourages growth, a chamomile plant has its growing point at the tip of its shoot so you should not mow or shear it apart from to remove any dead or damaged fronds. Its dwarf nature will mean that it never outgrows its space. Once planted you should not walk on a Chamomile lawn for at least 12 weeks and then only rarely for a year so that it can properly settle in. To pep it up in the summer or spring you could also plant some crocus bulbs or diminutive pinks or Dianthus and creeping thyme to add floral interest - or try planting a few of the flowering types of chamomile especially the low-growing 'Flore Pleno'. The only things to disturb your peace with respect to a chamomile lawn would be if you were to have a preponderance of aphids which suck the foliage of its sap. Extremely sharp frosts will damage the leaves and might kill the plant in the early years. A more robust alternative to this chamomile for a lawn would be a creeping thyme like

Features of Treneague Chamomile

• Height: 6-10 cm
• Spread: 30 cm
• Colour: green foliage all year round
• Uses: border edging, lawn for light pedestrian use, rockery
• Spacing: 20 cm
• Scent: grassy, a little like new-mown hay
• Habit: spreads to form a mat
• Life: hardy perennial

Chamomile snippets

Mary Wesley's novel The Chamomile Lawn centred on a family on holiday in Cornwall in the last peacetime summer before World War 2. The chamomile lawn represented the quintessence of Englishness and something for all to hanker after over the coming years. Ironically Roman Chamomile, Chamaemelum nobile, was brought over by the Romans when they invaded England and its daisy-like flowers are used for all sorts of medicinal purposes - in tea for colds like Peter Rabbit's, to insomnia via menstrual cramps and ubiquitously in shampoo to lighten hair in eternal pursuit of that Scandi, sunkissed look. Matricaria retutica or German chamomile is more common and also often replaces Roman chamomile in tinctures and essential oils, but it is in fact a completely different plant and unsuited to pedestrian use.