Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and etc.

Having completed most of the routine spring tune up of the yard, I decided that it was time to let the projects begin. Our real task for this spring is building the garden beds, but we we do already have a great spot for tomatoes and a little corner where last year I had cutting flowers. I knew that I wanted more herbs than the few basil and mint that my single pot allowed, so once the tomatoes were in, I tackled the design and construction of an herb garden, in the former cutting garden. Here is the result!


















Now for the very fascinating description of the process! Greg uses these flue tiles to make drainage beds for our hose bibs ( more on that later). We have 6 of them in our yard, because, well, you can't have too many hoses cluttering up the yard, can you? I like the look of them and the idea that they come in several sizes and can be buried to different depths. Since some herbs can get very aggressive in their growing habits, it seemed that maybe these could have good design potential as well as providing a way to keep the plants contained. I got 6 flue tiles, but then decided on more herbs, so I just used a couple of clay pots I had, and it turns out I like the addition of circles to the design. I may still add one more round, since I would like to add dill.

Clay pots often have the disadvantage of leeching water from the plants, but flue tiles are much more dense than regular pots, and they are also fired differently. But just in case, you can paint the inside with gardening tar. So I have parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil (three kinds), oregano, chive, mint and I'll add dill. I chose these because I use them a lot, but there are so many interesting varieties and flavors that one could have a much larger selection. I still need to add some nice dressing to the ground between the plants, and I did plant sunflower seeds against the wall. Cool, huh?

Also cool is the garden path that Greg built. This is on the business side of the yard so it is purely for function, but he always combines it with form and makes things beautiful even when they don't need to be! For example, we have several basement windows, and we really didn't want deep window wells, especially in the family room. So we made these around each set of 2 windows (well, nice men with big machines did) and I planted rock growing goodies, and we love the spring show.
I thought that ajuga might be nice growing in the gravel so I planted a six pack the first year. All the plants died but one and I can't bear to deny it life after such a struggle! It's a very pretty view from inside as well. All in all, I am so happy with what appears to be the successes of our last two year's work and the promise of this. One of our main design goals was to have a yard that would bloom the whole growing season and there is much yet to enjoy from the spring bloomers.