Designing the best possible herb garden can be either a bit daunting or a lot of fun.You will have a lot of questions to consider:Where shall I locate the garden?What plants will thrive in my area?Which herbs do I use the most?Do I want a theme herb garden?Will it be a formal or informal garden design?How much time do I really have to care for it?Settle on a location. Rather than planting your herbs in the garden, look out your kitchen window and see if there is a suitable spot nearby to locate them. By finding a sunny spot near the kitchen door, you will have fast access to your culinary and tea herbs. Another option is to plant herbs in containers on a sunny patio.Which herbs will I plant?Decide on the type of herbs you use most, and plan your garden around them. Start by thinking of the kind of cooking you do – is it Italian, Mexican or French inspired? Which herbs do you now have in your spice rack, and which ones get used the most?Now, think about how much time you have to maintain and harvest your plants.This will help you decide the style and size of the garden. Generally, a lot of herbs can be grown in a small space, if the growing conditions are met.A 6 to 8 foot square or round space will be plenty large, and remember, you can always expand it later. A formal garden will take much longer to design and plant and maintain than an informal garden.Design a Formal Herb GardenThis style is generally geometric in shape, subdivided into symmetrical spaces. Low hedges of shrubs or box with paths of brick or gravel can separate the spaces. Each space will contain one type of plant, or perhaps one color of plant.You could have culinary herbs in one section, tea herbs in another, and so on. The overall shape could be circular, square, rectangular or diamond shaped. Many formal herb gardens have a central point of interest – a tree, a fountain, or a statue.If you decide on a formal garden, plan it out carefully on graph paper. Give your design enough room for both plants and paths. Look in garden books for inspiration, and find patterns that please you. These formal herb gardens, often called knot gardens can be beautiful additions to your yard.Informal Herb GardensIn this type of garden, herbs sprawl and creep naturally. They seem to have a pleasing mix of textures and foliage colors. However, pay some attention to planning as you plant.Learn how large each will grow, both height and spread. You don’t want to allow tall herbs to shade or over-grow smaller ones, or to have sprawling oregano overtake your smaller herbs.You can plant your informal herb garden as a themed garden – culinary, tea fragrance or medicinal herbs. Italian culinary herbs, health enhancing herbs or edible flowers could be your theme.If you live in a hot, dry location, perhaps a Mediterranean theme would work, with lavender, thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano planted.Another informal but attractive way to grow these plants is in a rockery. Roman chamomile, dwarf oregano and sage, winter savory, prostrate rosemary, pennyroyal and thymes are good rock garden herbs. Use local rocks to form the basis of your rockery, dug into the ground so they look natural, and intersperse them with your herbs, and perhaps add a few marigolds for color.Your herb garden, whether formal or informal, will be an investment of time, imagination and money that will repay you for years to come. Take the time to do your research before you plan it and most importantly, have fun with it.