This entry is for Adele, who asked if I would post pictures of the herbs. Sure thing! *S* And you can count on my posting pictures of the iris when they bloom, and after I’ve divided them. Thanks for asking!
This shot is an overview of the herb garden. You’re looking northwest. The house is behind and to the left, and the attached garage is behind to the right. This garden is still a work in progress. I have a lot of work to do in the north end of the garden, and I have to get serious about pulling the volunteer plants in the walkways. I HOPE to get a new layer of chat down. (Chat is a finishing grade of limestone that looks white in the sun. It’s ground, but not as fine as sand.) Please note….NO BOAT in the back yard!
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This is the southeast arm of the garden, looking south toward the house. Those beautiful mounds are oregano. (I probably have enough for the entire city. *G*) Beyond the oregano you can see chives about ready to bloom, and to the right are garlic chives. (If you grow garlic chives, do NOT let the flowers go to seed, or YOU will have enough for all the Chinese food in London for a year!)
This is the lower part of the NE arm of the garden. The small dark plant is a rose; to the right are two lavenders, a spearmint contained in a furnace flue, and a dark blue perennial salvia. Across the bottom of the picture are two of the lemon scented geraniums and a small silver thyme.
I’m addicted to thyme. I love growing it, and I love the smell of it. I have it in several of my gardens, and even in one pot. This particular bed needs a little renovation. The thyme has overtaken two thirds of the box and is creeping into the walk, and now the lemon balm is trying to escape from the furnace flue in the corner. Just past the timber on the north end of the box, you can see the clematis, which is growing by leaps and bounds!
This is the Angelica, surrounded by fever few. We destroyed a square yard of the feverfew to plant the tomatoes, and I have more to rout out in the walkway. I need to research Angelica. I have NO idea why I planted it. The tomatoes are south of the Angelica, and south of the tomatoes, I’ve planted spinach, which the bunnies really like! Tomatoes and spinach are not herbs, but they go so well with the culinary herbs that I couldn’t pass on them.
The deer severely pruned the sage this year. I wasn’t worried, because last year it came back well when I pruned it in the spring. Unfortunately, large parts of it died off this winter. Dear Husband pruned for me, and you can see the remaining gnarly arms, with two fairly healthy groups of leaves. I added a golden variegated sage, a tricolor sage, and a Berggarten sage yesterday. I haven’t had a lot of luck with anything other than the traditional sage, although I’ve managed to grow a white sage for several seasons. That was odd, because we’re one zone too cold for the plant. I think a large part of the problem is that chipmunks have taken over that bed, and may be cutting the roots of the plants as they burrow.
This last picture is of the south end of the center box. In the corner you can see Purple basil, and Purple Palace basil, with its ruffly edges. There are five plantings of sweet basil. From here you can’t see the miniature purple basil. I’ll take a picture of that, later. Off to the left you may be able to see the parsleys and a rosemary. To the end of that box are Purple Coneflower, and I’m going to plant dill and nasturtium.
I think the lemon verbena is going to be planted to the right of the Angelica in the northeast corner of the garden. It can be used for tea, and in baked goods, but I usually save it for potpourri.
I’m going to mulch around the tomatoes, spinach and basil. I plan to add compost to several of the boxes, and clean up the walkways, and we should be good to go when the exercise class visits. I think it will hold until the Red Hat Ladies visit i June, with the exception of the chives needing a haircut. From then on, it will be mostly weeding and watering and harvesting.
Thanks for asking about my herbs, Adele! *S*
Arrrgh!!!
It's just my state of mind!
Your herb garden is looking great! Tell your DH that the new timbers really spiff up your garden. Your exercise friends and Red Hatters have a treat in store.
Thank you for showing those pictures. Your herb garden looks wonderful.
My own herbs suffered badly over what was, st times, a freezing Easter and some have not survived. So I too need to make a trip to a local nursery and buy some more. More later on this in my own blog.
DH has gotta love you, Cop Car! He’ll be pleased that you noticed his work. We still have a bit to finish up, but I hope to get to it in the next week or so.
I hope the visitors do enjoy the view from the kitchen. I’ll have to let them know that they can actually walk through the garden if they wish.
Adele, I remember you telling us that the weather had been so unpredictable over there. It was rather crazy here, too, so that might explain why I wasn’t in such a hurry to get things planted. This entire week is in the 60s, I think, but the weather guys are muttering about EIGHTY DEGREES for Monday, Memorial Day holiday, here.
I’ll look forward to reading about your herbs, at your blog.
Wow – what a green thumb you have, Buffster!
We had a garden last year, went overboard on different kinds of tomatoes, but generally tried to cram too much into too small a plot.
We didn’t put one in this year, and I am already wishing we had been more industrious.
Pattie, there’s nothing better than home grown tomatoes. I’ve limited myself to three plants this year, unless I manage to find one of the miniature pear tomatoes. Like you, I overplanted my tomatoes last year. It works for my sister-in-law, why doesn’t it work for us!??
I think, given the heat in your part of the world, that you still have time to grow tomatoes, if you get started on it soon. Put black plastic down on the ground, and make x’s in it where you want to plant. Be sure to water well. The plastic will reflect the heat up on the plants, and will keep mud from splashing on them. You’ll have BIG TOMATOES in no time! Good luck!
Temperatures over here have been up (hot) and down (cold) all over the place – I haven’t lknow what to wear whenever we have left the house.
We also have a Bank Holiday this Monday but the forecast seems to be no sun at all and rain Sunday and Monday. Wonderful, I don’t think.
Will you look at those gardens? WOW. They look wonderful. I know they keep you busy Buffy…but you’ve done a great job as usual on them. Whatever it is….YOU have it….THE MAGIC TOUCH. It all looks so beautiful.
Just a little GREEN with envy,
Joy -xo-
Thank you, Joy! It’s easy in the spring, when Mother Nature helps with the watering. It gets harder in the heat of summer, when both the gardens and I melt. I’m a very-early-in-the-morning gardener from June 15 through August 1, and from August 1 to early September, it’s “WHAT Gardens!?” *G*
Buffy–You DO have a green thumb! Some of us need to know how to keep our tomato plants COOLER, not WARMER (I’m reading your advice to Pattie!) Another month and our plants won’t set fruit because of the nightime heat.
I put out two tomato plants, as an early gamble, and several more, three weeks ago. All are doing well. The gamble plants have green tomatoes on them that are the size of good-sized cherry tomatoes. Last year, I put in only three plants. As I wasn’t home very much, it was just as well that no more got planted.
Cop Car, you can tell that I have only briefly lived away from the area where I was born. It never occured to me that there might be areas too warm to grow tomatoes! I guess I need to surf for more answers for Pattie. Perhaps she needs to grow them earlier or later in the season, or provide a bit of shade, and automatic watering. I bet her hubby can help with that!
I hope that you could hear me giggling. We do tend to think that the issues we face in doing a task are universal, don’t we? Plus—how would I know whether Pattie has your problems or mine or her own with tomatoes? Only she can tell you!