Herbs are essential garden plants, as pretty as they are useful, so when you're choosing herbs for your garden, don't just think about taste -- remember color, fragrance, and texture, and give herbs plenty of room in your garden plans.

There's an herb for every recipe, but really no recipe for an herb garden -- the important thing is to grow what you like and to find places and ways for herbs to thrive. An herb garden might include old-fashioned roses for rose-petal jam or tea, lemongrass to freshen up Asian recipes, or sesame plants for your baking. You might grow a row of tall, cheerful sunflowers and harvest seeds both for yourself and for the birds. You don't even need to do any digging: Simply place a pot of rosemary on the back stairs where you will enjoy its fragrance as you come and go.

The choice of plants for herb gardens "is wide open," says Gayle Engels, special projects director of the American Botanical Council, which specializes in herbal medicine information but promotes herbs and herb gardening widely. Herbs from around the world flourish in 25 medicinal and culinary herb gardens at the ABC's headquarters in Austin, Texas. The demonstration gardens are pretty, but they have a purpose. The goal is to inspire herb growing and suggest new ways to use herbs.

Engels doesn't have a handy list of recommended herbs for everyone. It "depends on the individual and what they want," she says. Many herbs are beautiful and versatile: Engels loves calendulas for their bright petals, which are dazzling in a salad. They're certainly appropriate in a culinary garden, but they're also grown for their medicinal uses: Engels makes a soothing skin oil from calendula petals and almond oil. Mint also works hard in both culinary and medicinal herb gardens -- it is a classic herb for summer drinks and salads, but a big bundle of mint leaves can also be used to make a first-rate soaking solution for tired feet, Engels says.

Most herbs grow best in a sunny spot. "It doesn't have to be the best soil ever," Engels says, as long as it drains well. Many annual herbs -- parsley, basil, cilantro, dill and others -- flourish in summer's heat, and do not need pampering to grow and thrive. Perennial herbs -- sage, oregano, thyme, lavender, mint, chives and others -- are also easy to grow, and they benefit from pruning and harvesting.

Experience is an excellent teacher, Engels says. You'll learn by doing, and by persevering. If you've been trying to grow an herb that doesn't seem to thrive for you, try moving it to a different spot. In the AHC gardens in Texas, if an herb still doesn't do well after a couple of moves, they replace it with a plant that prefers their climate's hot, dry conditions.

You don't need 40 acres and a tractor to have a successful herb garden. A large flowerpot will serve for several parsley, basil and dill plants. Plant labels may recommend generous spacing, but when you're harvesting regularly, it's all right to crowd herbs close together. Many herbs grow well alongside ornamental plants; try planting zinnias in with dill or basil, for example, or grow a border of parsley, chives or lavender around a flower bed. Remember, many common garden flowers -- daylilies, dianthus, pansies, nasturtiums -- are traditional herb-garden plants, too.

These days, gardeners are expanding their herb selections to include spices commonly used in Indian, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese recipes, Engels says. It is easy to give them a try, either by planting seeds, getting cuttings from friends or buying transplants. "Push the envelope. Try new things," she says. "It's more of an art than a science."

Engels teaches herb-gardening classes, and she says her students are also looking for new ways to use familiar herbs. Lots of gardeners ask her about herbal teas, about infusions and elixirs made with herbs, and about the benefits of herbs for pollinators. The flowers of many herbs, including dill and fennel, attract butterflies to the garden, and their leaves and flowers are a source of food for the caterpillars. It can be disconcerting to discover caterpillars eating your parsley, so plant enough to share, she suggests -- vegetable gardens are even more productive when there's a thriving pollinator population in and around your garden.

Herb gardens have their roots deep in the past, but they're full of modern-day adventure, Engels says. They're rich in the fragrance, flavors and cultures of faraway places. No matter where they come from, you can enjoy them to the fullest in an herb garden right in your own back yard.

SOURCES

-- The American Botanical Council is a great source of information about herbs of all kinds. The Council specializes in herbal medicine information and supports sustainable gardening. The Council's headquarters in Austin, Texas, is open for tours. For information, abc.herbalgram.org.

-- The Herb Society of America is another excellent source of information promoting the "knowledge, use, and delight" of herbs. For information, herbsociety.org.

Butterflies are everyone's favorite pollinators. Attracting them to the garden is easy: Grow flowers, and they will come.

To a butterfly, your garden is not just a pretty place; it's a habitat, and your colorful flowers are a nectar-rich source of sustenance. Many garden plants, including trees, shrubs and vines, are also host plants for butterfly larvae, fascinating caterpillars that, in time, pupate and emerge through metamorphosis to populate the garden with butterflies. When you plant both nectar and host plants, you're growing your own butterflies.

You don't need a big garden to enjoy the pleasure of many kinds of butterflies. A pot full of zinnias or cosmos will attract butterflies to a tiny patio garden. A window box planted with bright lantanas welcomes butterflies to a garden on a balcony in the big city. Urban or rural, beds filled with annual and perennial flowers, blooming in succession from spring through frost, will put you right on the stage for a fluttering pageant of butterflies. In gardens of any description, simply being able to follow the lifecycles of butterflies enriches your experience of the great outdoors.

When you plant flowers for butterflies, be bold. Large flowers, with big landing pads, are easy for butterflies to see, and they're great nectar sources. Daisies, coneflowers, lantanas, sedum, verbenas and black-eyed Susans all attract butterflies. Plant them in drifts of three or more plants, and butterflies will spot them from afar and sail in to sip eagerly from these handsome sources of nectar.

Garden phlox, a perennial plant with bold clusters of purple, pink or white flowers, is among the best butterfly plants. It is hardy and easy to grow, and it blooms for weeks in the heat of summer. Horticulturists at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware made a two-year study of 94 different kinds of phlox that thrive in sun and shade, evaluating them for their garden performance and appeal to butterflies. They found that phlox Jeana, a strain discovered in Nashville, Tennessee, was the single most attractive to butterflies, but you can scarcely go wrong with any kind of phlox.

Anise hyssop, a good-looking perennial in the mint family, also attracts the lively attention of butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators. A single plant produces many flowering stems that stand quite tall in the tumult of a flower bed and bloom for months. They're hardy, undemanding, drought-tolerant plants. Long-blooming flowers, or an assemblage of different flowers that bloom from spring through frost, attract and maintain a thriving and varied butterfly population. Salvias, known for their long-lasting blooms, also earn high marks for their appeal to butterflies and hummingbirds. Ageratum, calendulas, and all kinds of daisy-flowered plants should be on your butterfly garden list. From late summer through fall, the purple flowers of joe-pye weed are covered with butterflies.

Milkweeds are critical flowers for butterflies, especially for the striking orange-and-black monarch butterflies, which lay their eggs on these plants. Milkweed is the only food their larvae eat. Without milkweeds -- including the brilliant orange-flowering butterfly milkweed Asclepias tuberosa -- there would be no monarchs. They bloom on and off throughout the summer, sustaining generations of butterflies and other pollinators. Milkweed plants can be found at native-plant nurseries, and they are not hard to grow from seed.

The flowers, trees and shrubs native to your region (and thus adapted to your climate and conditions) will naturally attract butterflies. Many species of aster, goldenrod, bee balm, lobelia, coreopsis, blazing star, ironweed and other natives flourish on the borders of farm fields and in the rough-and-tumble right-of-way of highways and country roads. Cultivars of these natives, chosen for their size, flower color or good garden behavior, are excellent additions to butterfly gardens.

When your garden includes host plants for caterpillars, it gives you an even deeper appreciation for the delicate butterflies they become. Voracious green-and-black-striped swallowtail caterpillars can decimate a parsley plant or a stand of fennel in no time, but watching them grow and emerge from the pupae as gorgeous swallowtails is worth losing a plant or two. To compensate in advance for any loss, simply plant more than you need.

The Xerces Society describes pollinators -- bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, moths, wasps and even some birds and bats -- as "the little things that run the world." They are "indisputably the most important animals on Earth," says the society, which works to conserve and protect butterflies and the other invertebrate pollinators. Like other pollinators, butterflies play a central role in agriculture, including backyard vegetable gardens. Butterflies and their caterpillars are an essential food for birds, which add yet another dimension to the beauty and interest of your garden. Remember, don't use pesticides in your butterfly garden: You will deprive yourself of much of the wonder of your garden's glorious show.

SOURCES

-- The Xerces Society (xerces.org) has lots of resources for gardeners on its website, including regional plant lists identifying the best nectar and host plants for butterflies and pollinators of all kinds.

-- The Mt. Cuba Center is a botanical garden in Hockessin, Delaware, with a special research interest in native plants and conservation. The center's reports on phlox, coreopsis, bee balm, coneflowers and asters are available on its website, mtcubacenter.org.

Great patio furniture makes your garden a delightful place to gather with friends. A garden bench is altogether different: A well-chosen, well-placed bench gives you a place all for yourself.

A garden bench is a finishing touch, like a feather in a hat, that completes a landscape. Benches help define spaces in a garden and complement its style. They offer irresistible destinations. Seen from the house, a bench beckons you outdoors. And once you're out there, a bench gives you the best of vantage points from which to admire the beauty around you, to rediscover your garden each day from a comfortable spot within its leafy embrace.

Making a place for a garden bench introduces an element of art and architecture into your landscape. Benches refine nature in an informal garden, and, in a formal space, they complement neat lines and clipped shrubbery. A cheerful painted bench is a bright spot in the dappled light of a shade garden. A fine, natural wood bench, aged to a soothing silver, helps tone down the riot of color in an exuberant cottage garden.

The earliest garden benches were nothing more than sturdy pieces of furniture brought outdoors for an afternoon in the sun, according to the late garden authority Rosemary Verey. Instead of having benches in the garden, most people borrowed from the house, or simply sat on the ground or on a low bank, Verey said, until the invention of the turf seat, which was basically a small raised bed planted with grass -- or, even better, with a fragrant herb such as thyme. Such benches would be a charming touch in an herb garden today, too, especially with an arch over the top, perhaps planted with morning glory or some other easy annual vine, to gracefully frame the space and provide a bit of shade.

In her book "Classic Garden Design," Verey traced the development and use of garden benches through history, exploring styles, colors and materials. The ideas of the past provide all kinds of inspiration for modern garden benches, but copying them isn't necessary. Stone benches suited to the grand estates of the past may seem out of place in modern gardens of any style. The palatial proportions of benches at English estates are intimidating by today's standards, but the careful craftsmanship of these fine old benches will never go out of fashion. Verey liked durable iron benches, and she was particularly pleased with a curved bench her husband made for her.

Today, garden benches do not need to be grand to be great. A gardener in Annapolis, Maryland, chose large boulders to use as benches in his garden, complementing rustic fences that define the garden's rooms. A boulder in the rock garden looks as though it was placed there by nature, and sitting on its smooth surface for a few moments lets you better appreciate the intriguing plantings all around.

A gardener in Virginia arranged two small benches facing each other in her courtyard, like a pair of sofas in a living room. The conversational placement takes perfect advantage of the proportions of the space.

One of the best known of simple garden benches was designed by the conservationist Aldo Leopold, author of "A Sand County Almanac," for his weekend house in Wisconsin. Leopold sat on his bench, made with six pieces of standard lumber, every morning as he drank his morning coffee and listened to the birds. He took notes as he sat there planning his day, but he did not linger -- the utilitarian bench has beautiful lines, but it is not relaxing for long.

There are no rules about where a bench should be placed, although a path to it is essential. It could be a final destination at the end of a long, meandering walk through a garden, or you may want to place a bench halfway into your garden, to entice you just far enough away from the house to escape for a moment of fresh air. It could be notched right into a flower bed somewhere along the way, where you can savor the flowers and fragrance. Or be practical: A bench beside the back door becomes a place to park tools or to change in and out of your garden shoes. A bench by the front door welcomes visitors and invites neighborly conversation.

Above all, a garden bench is a sign of good intentions. There's a chance you will not sit on it very often, or for very long, but just knowing it is there, ready for you when you find a moment, makes you feel connected to the garden. It's your reserved seat in nature.