Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, sweet marjoram has been grown in kitchen gardens for centuries, valued as much for its gray-green foliage as for the flavor of its leaves. At eight inches to two feet tall, it mounds softly at border edges or spills from containers, the tiny pink flowers appearing in summer and drawing bees with reliable enthusiasm. The key to coaxing its best flavor is to harvest before those flowers fully open — the essential oils are most concentrated then.

In zones 9 and 10 it overwinters reliably outdoors, but gardeners in colder regions have long treated it as a tender perennial worth bringing in before frost. Unlike its more pungent cousin Origanum vulgare, this species carries a sweeter, more subtle fragrance that suits it equally to ornamental use — tucked among salvias and lavenders on a sun-baked slope where drainage is assured. It rots in waterlogged soil without exception, so choose the sunniest, best-draining spot available.