Savory (Satureia hortensis: summer savory and Satureia montana: winter savory)

The summer savory is annual; winter savory is perennial. The former is easily grown from seeds, but it is more practical to buy plants of winter savory, which, in a garden, may be reproduced by dividing and transplanting the roots in early spring.

Most authors agree that the summer savory is the more interesting of the two. I do not share their opinion and, although I regularly plant the annual variety, many a summer passes without its ever being touched, whereas the borders of winter savory find abundant use: in the spring the tender young leaves, chopped, transform a salad, and tradition justly renders them obligatory with cooked broad beans; later the leaves become too tough and brittle to be pleasant in salads, but they remain, fresh, a superior flavoring agent, and, in full late-summer flower, the branches are cut back to serve throughout the winter in herb mixtures and bouquets garnis.