7 Plants Every Tea Garden Needs

If you've ever wanted to grow your own herbal tea garden, this is where you should start because in this video I'm going to be showing you guys my favorite tea garden plants, the ones that are really easy to grow, that taste amazing, and that are going to come back year after year. Here's why I think you should consider growing a tea garden even if you don't consider yourself a tea person. I myself never really considered myself much of a tea person until I started growing my own things and making my own tea because I'm telling you the flavor hits so different. It's just so different than those bags that you get at the store. Harvesting your own tea garden plants at the peak of their freshness and their flavor is optimized is just going to taste a thousand times better. The stuff that we get in the store, first of all, we don't know how long ago that was harvested. We don't know how long that has been dried and has been sitting there. Also, sometimes they are processed in some way shape or form and it just tastes a little lackluster than when you harvest things yourself. And I swear the first cup of tea that you make and whatever concoction that you decide to make, your mind will be changed forever. But even if you do grow a tea garden and you try tea and then you're still like, it's just not for me, there are other uses for these tea plants. It's not just for tea. They add a lot to your garden. They attract pollinators. They attract beneficial insects. They act as companion plants and they just increase the overall diversity in your backyard ecosystem, which if you guys have been following me for a while, you know that the whole ecosystem is like my thing. We aren't just growing a garden, we're growing an ecosystem. And tea plants always have their place, whether it is for tea or not. It's just the cherry on top that we get to grow something that is not only good for our bodies, but good for our minds as well. Speaking of being good for the mind, let's start with one of the more obvious ones, which is chamomile. Chamomile tea is so widely known and it's also been more widely studied than a lot of other herbal remedies have been. And it has some real science behind it as to how it actually does help with anxiety and it helps people go to sleep, which is what a lot of people drink chamomile tea for, is like a sleepy time tea right before bed. I enjoy chamomile at any hour of the day, anytime I need to feel a little calm because I really do feel its effects. And chamomile has this compound in it called apigenin and this binds to the same receptors in the brain that benzodiazepines bind to. So things like Xanax and Ativan and all of the other ones. And so it really does decrease your anxiety in that way. Obviously not the same as Xanax or Ativan, but in a very mild and just really calming way. Chamomile is amazing. It's also great as a plant. It's so pleasant. Its flowers smell like a mix of apple and honey. They smell so good and their taste is kind of really subtle and floral and honey-ish as well. It's just a really pleasant plant to have around. And the small flowers pollinators really love and those beneficial insects, they usually need small daisy-like flowers to get their nectar from and so it is a really great plant to have around. I have chamomile spread throughout my entire garden. I have it right now in like three different garden beds that I'm looking at and then I have some volunteers that came up from last year. That's the other thing about chamomile here in Zone 8a, it's not a perennial, but it self-seeds so aggressively kind of that it does come back every year anyways if you just let some of it go to seed, which I do because I readily welcome chamomile anywhere it wants to pop up. I'm like, yes, you're here. This is your garden. You can be anywhere you want. So I think that that's definitely at the top of my tea garden list. Next we have mint and mint is really fun. It's also very chaotic, but it makes a great tea. Mint is so fun because there's so many different types of mint and you can really experiment with different flavors in your tea and other ways that you can use mint. There's the classics which are peppermint and spearmint and I think that there's a sweet mint as well. Then we have some different flavors like banana mint, chocolate mint, strawberry mint, orange mint, apple mint. There's so many different kinds of mints. It's crazy, but that's what makes it fun and I love to collect mints. I have like five different varieties of mint growing right now with my biggest population being spearmint. I like spearmint because it's a little bit sweeter than peppermint. Peppermint is more like that cooling kind of intense flavor, whereas spearmint is more sweet and great for syrups and things like that. Peppermint tea specifically is known to be really good for your digestive system. I have IBS. I have my entire life and I always lean towards a mint tea either before or after meals, sometimes even during meals, and it really does help. I won't say it helps 100% of the time by any means, but it really does help. I really do see a consistent like upward trend of the times that it helps versus the times that it doesn't help. A lot of over-the-counter medications that are formulated for stomach issues include things like peppermint oil. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of IB guard. It's this thing that you can get over the counter. My doctor actually recommended this to me for IBS and it's literally just like peppermint oil in a capsule. You can take it during times of stress. It does have a lot of real science behind it and how it helps your digestive system. So it's a really good thing to have in your tea garden. However, mint is very aggressive. It can actually become invasive. And so it's very, very important that you do not plant mint in your ground. Mint doesn't just spread from flowers dropping seed. It does spread that way, but it also spreads through these rhizomes that run underneath the ground and they can go very, very, very far. So if you've ever accidentally planted mint in the ground and then you notice that mint is popping up in a completely separate part of your yard, that's what's happening. It's spreading underground. So a way that you can contain mint is to physically contain it, plant it in a container. If you're planting it in a garden bed with other things, just be aware that it may out-compete with those other things and it may end up taking over the entire bed. I like to just plant mint alone. It does not play well with others in a separate container. And I really try hard to not let it go to flower. If I notice that my mint is starting to flower, that is time to do a full chop. One, because I don't want it to seed and spread itself everywhere. And two, if mint goes to flower, then we have less leaves and the leaves are the part of the plant that we are harvesting for tea. And so if you chop all of your mint down when it's flowering, then it will stimulate the plant to regrow leaves instead. That being said, if you don't let your mint go to flower, it doesn't offer a lot for things like pollinators and beneficial insects. So mint is more of something that we grow specifically for us. But if you don't like mint tea, mint is really good for a lot of other things as well. You can make a mint syrup, which is really great in coffee or even baked goods. Mint is great in salads like cucumber salad with dill and a little bit of mint. So it has a lot of culinary purposes. I'm getting so distracted by a hummingbird right now. Oh my god. I don't know if I caught it on camera. Anyway, mint is also good for things like ice cream. You can make a mint ice cream. There are a lot of other purposes with mint other than tea, which is why it is definitely on my list. And yes, mint is a perennial here in zone 8a. So it tends to kind of die back in the winter, but then it pops right back up in the spring. It'll also kind of start to die back a little bit in the summer because mint doesn't necessarily love hot weather, but then it'll kind of just revamp itself in the fall. The next herb is in the mint family. So everything I said about mint, it pretty much applies to this one as well. And that is a lemon balm. However, lemon balm has a completely different taste and it can be used completely differently. I love lemon balm for fresh tea. I don't even feel like I really need to dry out the leaves, which I mean, any of these you can use with fresh tea, but fresh lemon balm tea specifically, it just has something different to it. I don't know. I can't really explain. And lemon balm is one of those like filler plants for a tea. It's just one of those really great plants that you can blend in any tea. If you are having a more earthy kind of tea and you want it to taste better lemon balm. I specifically love to blend lemon balm with chamomile because I find lemon balm also really relaxing. Yeah. It's just one of those overall really great herbs to have around. And I also love to use it as a substitute for basil in pesto. Lemon balm pesto is amazing. Like you have to make it, you have to try it. All you really do is you just sub the basil for lemon balm. It's so good. This one I feel like is completely underrated in the tea world. And that is the lemongrass. This is one of those plants that is two for one. You can use it many different ways. I personally love to use the leaves for tea. You can use the stalks or the leaves for tea. I just think that the leaves, they don't get a lot of love. It's really the stalks that we use in things like cooking, especially in like Thai meals and Asian cuisines and things like that. And I do love the stalks, but the leaves are perfect to use for tea. It's such a nice, subtle lemony flavor. It's kind of like lemon balm, but I feel like lemongrass is actually even more lemony. And honestly, it's one of my favorite things to put in tea. It's great to blend with things like mint or chamomile, both. It's an overall great plant. This is not a perennial here. It is very tender. However, you can kind of treat it like a citrus. You can bring it inside for the winter. Mine goes in the greenhouse for the winter, and then you can propagate it by pulling apart the stalks and starting a new plant. Next up, we have anise hyssop. And I've talked about this plant before. I love this plant. I think every single garden in North America should have this plant in their garden, whether they use it for tea or not. One, because it is native to North America. So it is a native plant that is really important to our ecosystem. And it truly shows, because in my garden, it is really one of the only plants that the pollinators absolutely flock to when it's in flower. It is one of those plants that is just full of life. Everywhere you look, there is some kind of bug or bee or some sort of flying insect all over it, just getting nectar or pollen or something from the plant. And it is just one of those plants that just truly brings life into your ecosystem. Highly, highly recommend it. It also works out well for us because it also makes a great tea. Anise hyssop is an agostache, which is kind of in the same ballpark as mint. However, it doesn't spread as aggressively as mint. It does tend to spread when you let it go to flower, but I feel like it's worth it to let it go to flower because, like I said, for the pollinator support, it's definitely not as aggressive as mint at all. Before it goes to flower, I love to use the leaves for tea. It is called anise hyssop because it does have an anise-y type of flavor to it. It is reminiscent of licorice. I don't like licorice, but I do love anise hyssop tea. It's kind of like a cross between anise and mint. It has a licorice-adjacent flavor, but it's much more sweet and palatable than licorice is. If you like licorice, then you will definitely enjoy this tea. It also has been known to help with digestive issues, just like mint and lemon balm, so it's just another one of those great additions to the garden. It is a perennial here in zone 8a. It comes back every single year, and like I said, it's native, so it's so, so easy to grow. You don't have to try at all to grow this plant. Another tea garden plant with multiple uses is calendula. This is one of those plants I tell everyone to grow because it has so many uses. First and foremost, it's just a beautiful plant. It has beautiful flowers. It's one of those first flowers that is going to come up in the spring because it's a very cold-tolerant flower. It grows best in the cooler months like spring and fall, and so it's that first sign of color in the garden, which just brings you joy and happiness, and it brings happiness to the pollinators, it being a first nectar source for pollinators. So it draws in those pollinators, it draws in those beneficial insects. That alone is enough to grow it. It also makes a really great tea. However, it doesn't taste the best, in my opinion. I think it tastes very earthy, it tastes very medicinal, and it needs things to cover up the taste. It needs to be paired with things like mint or chamomile or lemon balm, something very strong that can kind of cover up its taste. However, calendula has really great medicinal properties. It's an anti-inflammatory, just kind of overall health and well-being herb to add to your tea. Thirdly, you can use chamomile in skincare applications. I love to make a calendula salve. That's one of my favorite things to make. I try to make it every year. I have friends and family that ask for it. I make it into lip balms as well. Calendula is one of those things that has also been extensively studied for its skin-soothing properties, and it really does. It's just such a great thing to turn into a balm or a salve, and you can use it on abrasions, chapped lips, any kind of minor skin issue. Now, I'm not saying if you cut yourself and you're bleeding out, slap some calendula on it. That's not what I'm saying at all. But any kind of minor skin issue, it is really healing. It's great for scars. It's overall a great pleasing herb to have around for all of those reasons. It is not a perennial here in Zone 8a. However, it does reseed itself pretty readily. If you let a few of the flowers go to seed and you let them just naturally fall, they will come up the next year. I have only had to plant calendula, I think, maybe once, and then I have a ton of volunteers come up. I might pop in a few seeds in the early spring just to have more, but if I wanted to, I could just not plant it ever again and I would still have it come up in my garden. Did you know that green tea, black tea, red tea, white tea, oolong tea, all of those teas come from the same plant? And it's the one right here behind me. This is Camellia sinensis, and this is the true tea plant. We are ending with the ultimate tea plant that you should be growing in your garden, but only if you live in Zone 7-9. This only grows in a very specific part of the country, mostly because Camellia is kind of a finicky plant. It does like part shade, and so that's why I'm growing this kind of here in between my shed and my greenhouse. It is in a nice shady spot back here. And to be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing with this plant. I don't know anything about it. I bought two of these at the garden center about three years ago. I was like, oh, that's cool. It's the tea plant. Like, yeah, I'm gonna grow it. And here they are looking healthy, and they're very, very large. I just kind of bought this plant without thinking about the harvesting and everything that I would have to learn about how to process this and how to make my own tea, because it is a really long process. And now that it's thriving, I'm like, hmm, I should probably learn all of this. And the one thing that I learned upon further investigation is that you're not supposed to let them get this big. You actually are supposed to continuously prune this plant because the buds, the new emerging leaves of this plant, are what you use to make tea with. And so when harvesting tea, they kind of say you want to only harvest two leaves and a bud. The very tip of the plant, this right here, you go through and you harvest all of those that you see throughout the entire plant. And so that's why in tea farms, they're constantly pruning the plants to constantly tell the plant, hey, we need more of these new leaves. I didn't know that, so I just let my tea plant get huge. So I am gonna go and I am gonna give it a hard prune. I do want to collect the buds that I do see, and I do want to at least brew my own one measly cup of green tea if I can. I also have to do more research about the whole process. I think I am going to go to a tea farm in Raleigh, and they do workshops where they teach you all about that, how to process and everything like your own tea, and they also sell tea plants. So I'm going to be doing that coming up to learn more. But I mean, I can confidently say that I at least have the growing down pat. These plants are great. And now it kind of makes me want to propagate these and grow more. I have a lot of part shade spots in my garden that I could just start filling in with tea plants. So yeah, that's my plan with that. And as far as the processing goes, it depends on how you process this thing right here. And that is going to depend on if it makes a green, a black, a white or an oolong tea. Again, I don't have any experience, so I'm not going to go far into detail with that. But I am very excited to learn more. And obviously, I will keep you guys updated on my my tea growing journey. But I do think if you live in zone seven through nine, this has been such an easy plant. I planted them and I obviously forgot about them. And here it is. So yeah, if you can, I think that you should totally add this to your tea garden. I hope you guys feel inspired to add some of these or all of these tea garden plants to your garden. And I want to say, get creative with blending teas. All of these plants, you will either dry out the flowers or you will dry out the leaves in order to preserve them. And when I say dry out, there are several ways that you can do that. You can use your oven, you can purchase a dehydrator, which I highly recommend, especially if you're dehydrating a lot of tea, it just makes the process a lot easier. You can also let them naturally air dry. There are hangers that you can get that you can lay out your tea and just have it dry on the air. You can make bundles with certain things and tie the bundle at the end with some twine, hang it somewhere and let it naturally dry. You can also throw in some other fun additions to your tea. If you grow ginger, if you grow fruit like blueberries or strawberries, you can dehydrate the fruit and you can make a tea. One of my absolute favorite combinations that I've been loving recently is fresh chamomile, fresh lemon balm, and fresh blueberries. It makes the most pleasant tea in the world. And I just love it. So if you have all of those things right now, definitely give it a try. Let me know what you think in the comments. If you have a tea blend that you like and you use regularly, also leave it in the comments so that we can all learn. If there's another tea plant that you enjoy, because I went through, I think like seven or eight of them, there are so many plants that you can use for herbal teas. So many out there. If I were to list all of them, this would be a 50 hour long video. So if you have another favorite, please leave it in the comments for all of us to learn from. And if you enjoyed this video, please be sure to like and subscribe and hit the notification button to be notified of any new videos. You can find me on all of the places. I'm also on Substack. And don't forget to check out the Garden Girls podcast. We drop new episodes every single week. And I will see you guys in the next one. Bye!