Stretch your gardening and culinary palette and try a few new herbs in this year’s garden. Here are some less-than-common selections to tempt you for 2014.

• Lovage ( Levisticum officinale), is a Mediterranean perennial that reaches a whopping 3 to 7 feet in height — but don’t let its tall stature turn you off. Lovage is a fresh-scented herb that is used to flavor everything from soups and stews to sweets. One of the finest Bloody Marys I’ve ever been served came with a natural straw of lovage. It was love at first sip.

The celery-like scent and flavor is a real treat, while the flower heads of lovage each have an enormous number of very tiny yellow-green flowers. Arranged together, they can reach up to 8 inches across. The leaves of lovage look a bit like celery on steroids. They have numerous leaflets that get smaller as they progress higher up the flowering stalk. It’s an imposing plant that prefers full sun and average garden soil. Give it a lot of space.

• Caraway ( Carum carvi) is another herb that deserves a place in your garden. Caraway is a biennial (meaning it only produces leaves the first season, then flowers and dies the second). Reaching about 2 feet in height, caraway is a common ingredient in everything from rye bread to sauerkraut. The soft pink or white flowers it bears are diminutive, but gathered together like other members of the carrot family, they make a striking umbrella-shaped inflorescence (called an umbel). Caraway’s stems are hollow and the leaves are finely divided and feather-like. The leaves, flowers, and seeds all have a licorice-like flavor and scent.

• Sweet marjoram ( Origanum majorana) is grown as an annual here in Western Pennsylvania. Though it is hardy only in USDA zones 8 to 10, the plant is a true perennial and can often be overwintered in a container on a bright windowsill.

With a mild, yet sweet, oregano flavor, sweet marjoram is used in stuffing, potato dishes and on poultry. It’s excellent when used fresh, but the flavor really intensifies upon drying. The plant’s growth habit is fairly loose and floppy, so allowing it to tumble over the edge of a patio pot or retaining wall works well, as does edging a garden bed. Mature plants reach 8 inches in height.

Sweet marjoram bears small white-to-lavender flowers, but the buds should be removed before they open. Like many herbs, allowing the plant to flower may alter the flavor of the foliage.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser co-hosts “The Organic Gardeners” at 7 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio. She is the author of several gardening books, including “Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control” and “Good Bug, Bad Bug.” Her website is www.jessicawalliser.com.

Send your gardening or landscaping questions to tribliving@tribweb.com or The Good Earth, 503 Martindale St., 3rd Floor, D.L. Clark Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.

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