The efforts of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, met with greater success when he sailed from Europe round the Cape of Good Hope to the Malabar Coast in 1498, returning to Lisbon with a rich cargo of herbs and spices. On a second voyage in 1502 he reached Ceylon.

In 1524 he was appointed viceroy of India for his discoveries, which enriched Portugal and raised her to the front rank among European nations. In time Portugal had a monopoly on the lucrative trade in herbs and spices, supplying Europe with pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. The Mediterranean remained relatively unimportant as a trade route until the opening of the Suez Canal and Venice was replaced by Lisbon as the centre of commerce in herbs and spices.

The colonizers tried to preserve their monopoly by stringent measures designed to prevent the cultivation of spices on territory belonging to other nations but in this they were successful only for a time. In the course of the 18th century the cultivation of herbs and spices spread throughout the tropics.

Rocket, like many other herbs, is native to southern Europe and western Asia, but nowadays it is naturalized in central Europe through Spain to Morocco and through Asia Minor to Turkestan. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants and has given rise to numerous forms still grown around the Mediterranean.

However, it was not until the 5th century A.D. that it began to be shipped to Europe from Alexandria, being sold there by Arabian merchants. From the 9th century onwards clove became a fashionable spice used by wealthy families.

The first European to see the tree growing in its native land was the Venetian merchant Marco Polo in the 13th century. When Vasco da Gama discovered the Molucca Islands the Arabian monopoly was replaced by the Portuguese and in the 17th century by the Dutch. Up until the turn of the 18th century the entire world was supplied with cloves only from the Moluccas.

In 1770 the French, under threat of death, smuggled some seeds on two small ships and grew the first cultivated trees on the islands of Mauritius and Reunion. Nowadays cloves are produced chiefly in Zanzibar and Pemba, where they have been raised since the early 19th century.

The scientific name of this plant is a pleonasm because the generic name Salvia is derived from the Latin word csalvare’, meaning to cure, and the specific name officinalis from the neo-Latin word `officina,’ meaning pharmacy. Despite the fact that sage is an important medicinal plant used by the Romans of ancient times, it also has its place in cookery.

The blue-green foliage as well as the seeds were used, not only to flavour salads, vegetable omelettes and sauces served with fish, but also to treat various diseases. It was used as an antidote against poisons and to banish evil spirits. An unknown writer of the 6th century B.C. recommends: ‘for the malady called lethargy, which is forgetfulness, take the herb rue, rinse it in vinegar and lay it on the brow’. In the Middle Ages it was used in making herb wines, hence the German name Weinraute.

As a seasoning it is most popular in Italy, France and England, where it is used with meat, mainly mutton, pork and game, as well as poultry, fish, in sauces, soups, salads and pickled vegetables. It is used crushed or ground and added to foods when they arc almost ready to eat, for lengthy cooking would cause evaporation of the essential oil that gives it its fragrance. Rosemary is an excellent seasoning but must be used sparingly, for larger doses may be deleterious.

Some idea of the type of garden you want may already be beginning to form in your mind. Before you start to translate your thoughts on to paper, make a rough but accurate survey of the garden.

If you have ever consulted an architect to extend your house you may already have a plan available, or a small site plan may be attached to the deeds of the house; any architectural drawing shop will enlarge this to scale for a small fee. But if you do not have a plan, the procedure for measuring up the garden is fairly straightforward.

The terrace will be the centre of the garden in terms of activity. How much space you give to it will obviously depend on the size and shape of your garden, the size of your family and your particular requirements. For sitting space, however, an absolute minimum width of two metres (a little over 6 ft) is necessary. Especially in summer, the terrace may be in constant use for sitting, visual link between indoors and outdoors, leading the eye out to a view of the garden eating out, sunbathing, children’s play, preparing food and doing any number of odd tasks. The diversity of activities which it is likely to sustain often calls for a sunny, sheltered place which is not overlooked.

Watercress is a perennial herb up to 80 cm (32 in) high. A native of Europe, it has become naturalized throughout the world, growing wild alongside brooks and streams in lowland country as well as in mountains.

The young leaves have a pleasant taste resembling that of horseradish and are used, chiefly in Scandinavian countries, as a pungent salad rich in vitamins. Watercress was popular in the days of the Roman Empire.

The fragrance of the foliage is due to the presence of an essential oil which is used also in the perfume industry. Fresh or dried leaves are used primarily for flavouring salads, in recipes where tomatoes are used (also ketchup), in fish as well as meat dishes (ragouts), sauces, sausages and salamis, raw vegetable dishes, herb butter, omelettes and turtle soup. It is very popular in Italian cookery.

A 15th-century manuscript lists it as one of several herbs that should be grown for flavouring soups. In the Middle Ages it is also found in recipes for pickling vegetables. Dioscorides, however, warned against eating too much basil, because it supposedly weakens the eyesight and is difficult to digest.

Choosing a hedge trimmer can be harder than it looks, the choices are practically endless. Most hedge trimmers are not cheap enough to be considered a throw away purchase, you need to make sure that you buy one that will last you a long time and is powerful enough to do the job you want it for.

Gasoline hedge trimmers are perhaps the oldest powered hedge trimmer. With a simple expedient of connecting the hedge trimmer to a gas powered engine, men have created a very powerful and useful garden tool. Today, it is still the most economical in terms of professional and large area hedge trimming. It may be obvious that for professional and commercial reasons, gas powered engine is the better preference.

The right hedge trimmer for you needs to be powerful enough to do the job at hand, easy enough to use without having to read a manual as large as war and peace and it needs to be priced properly. There is no point buying the best hedge trimmer in the world if the money you spend on it will mean you can’t afford to turn your electricity on for a month or two.

The common osier is a shrub growing from 2-6 m in height with stout, flexible, greenish-yellow stems tipped with silky hairs. The alternate buds are elongate, flat and coloured greenish brown. As in all species of willow they are covered by a single, cap-like scale. The dioecious flowers appear before the leaves at the end of March. The male flowers have two stamens. The capsules split to release the seeds at the end of May. It sprouts prolifically when pollarded and is propagated by cuttings.

To make sure that the transplanted shrub becomes well established and grows well it is important to preserve the ratio between the top and underground parts. When lifting a shrub its roots are often damaged quite severely and diminished in size and therefore it is necessary to cut back the top parts accordingly.

The eared willow grows to 1-2 m in height, and is a densely branched shrub of upright habit. First year twigs are covered with a fine grey pubescence, later becoming brownish and smooth. The closely alternate buds are barrel-shaped and covered by a single scale. It derives its name from the kidney-shaped stipules arranged in pairs at the base of the leaves.

Normally the loganberry is cooked but there are those, like my wife, who like acid fruits, who eat the berries raw with relish, when they are really ripe. The berries are produced in great profusion, being of a deep maroon colour.

Loganberries grow quite happily on their own roots. Feeding the canes. Loganberries have to form new canes each year and it is on these that the fruit is borne. They can be fed in a similar manner to blackberries. The only slight difference, perhaps, being that I have discovered they need more potash. Wood ashes should be used at 6 oz. to the sq. yard, or flue dust at 4 oz. to the sq. yard, each year early in March. Where sulphate of potash is available, made from grapeskins, this could be used at 2 oz. to the sq. yard.

These are best planted as ’struck tips’ in March. The rows should be 6 or 7 feet apart and the tips planted 8 feet apart in the rows. Time to plant is November or March. Age of canes is One year old.

Another method of increasing certain shrubs and their garden varieties is grafting and budding, where part of the plant to be propagated, either a graft or a bud, is transferred and attached to well-rooted stock of a common species. For some shrubs and fruits this is practically the only and most reliable means of propagation (tea roses, lilac, magnolia, apples and pears).

The successful outcome of grafting and budding depends on the extent to which the severed tissues of the scion join with those of the stock to form a new individual. It is not only cambium and wood to wood, but also that their tissues have a mutual affinity. For this reason the scion and stock must be from allied species, preferably of the same genus or family. The best and most reliable stocks for various species according to expert literature and verified in practice are the hawthorn, quince, cherry plum, privet, wayfaring tree.

It is necessary to stress that care and precision are important requirements of grafting and budding. The knife used to prepare the scion and the stock must be well sharpened, the cuts must be straight and smooth and their surface must not be soiled by the fingers or otherwise.

Garden thyme is becoming increasingly popular and more widely used. Whereas the Egyptians used it as a perfume and for embalming the dead and the ancient Greek scholar Dioscorides, an acknowledged authority even during the Middle Ages, stressed its medicinal properties (the plant’s generic name is derived from the Greek `thymos’, meaning strong or manly), nowadays it is used primarily as a food flavouring. Thyme may be used as a flavouring by itself, but usually it is one of the ingredients of proprietary herb mixtures. With parsley and bay leaf it serves as an ingredient of the traditional bouquet garni. Thyme is practically universal in its uses. It is added to soups, vegetables, fish, poultry and meats (particularly dishes prepared au chasseut), sausage meat, stuffings, salads, pickled gherkins and olives and is also used to make herb butter (often together with tarragon) and even to flavour honey.