The Herb Garden

The Herb Garden

When I moved in, the herb garden was lined with ferns along the back wall of the kitchen and nandina along the west side of the back bedroom. A crepe myrtle was in the center of the bed, much like the one in the myrtle and garage bed. The rest of the bed was covered with ornamental monocots, specifically, swamp lily and paperwhite narcissus.

 On June 8, 2013, A swamp lily was flowering.

I photographed this nandina between the patio and the wall to the east of the herb garden on September 5, 2013. It hugged the wall all the way across the kitchen back wall, the side of the bedroom, and around the corner along the bedroom back wall.
Click the photo to see it bigger!
On September 12, I removed most of the nandina from the space in front of the bedroom wall. The nandina roots would continue to sprout new leaves for a long time.
Two days later, I removed the rest of the nandina from the area, except for one between the kitchen windows. I then separated with leaf branches from the rest of the branches and broke the latter into a pile of short sticks.

Here's another view of the cleared area on September 14, 2013.
On September 16, 2013 I planted store-bought herbs in the area I had just l cleared. 
On October 10, 2013, the swamp lily was still flowering.
At some time between late 2013 and early 2014, I turned over the dirt in the garden bed and removed all the visible parts of the lilies and other monocots. Over time, they would grow back from bulbs and rhizomes I didn't remove. On February 24, 2014, I did a photo survey of the herb garden. The sage was healthy, but still small.

The thyme was spreading and looked good.

The marjoram was growing like crazy.

The rosemary looked healthy.

 Some carolina geranium had snuck into the bed.
 The lemon balm was spreading.
 I had added some "bronze" fennel to the garden.

Cleavers had moved in and were growing wildly.
I had added some salad burnet, which was barely managing to poke through the leaves.
And I had planted a lemongrass transplant right by the patio, which proved to be a bad location since there wasn't enough room for the plant to grow.
Here's a view herb garden on March 6, 2014, taken from the north side looking south. There was still nandina in the northeast corner. Monkey grass and cleavers are more visible than the planted herbs.

 On March 9, 2014, the Turk's cap had lost most of its leaves. It had leaves at the bottom and at the top, but none in the middle.

The herb garden on May 27, 2014

Shortly before October 19, 2014, I added the following plants:
On October 19, 2014, I cut down the crape myrtle in the herb garden. I tossed the cut trees to the pile in the south end of the east fence.

 This left four long stumps where the tree had been. Somewhere along the way, I clearly marked the curved northern border of the herb garden with cane sticks and, probably, the skinnier crape myrtle branches I had just cut down. This was the first step towards creating a walkway along the outside of the bed.

On February 22, 2015, The herb garden was lush with various plants. Coriander was growing in multiple places, and the lemon had grown significantly since the fall. Fennel, parsley, garlic chives, and rosemary were growing well. Most obviously, cleavers were taking over the bed, just as the did at this time in 2014. Violet woodsorrel was gaining ground, a few of whose flowers were visible.

Here are other plants I have had in the herb garden, most of which were store-bought transplants.
In addition to the pre-existing ornamentals and the herbs I added, a number of other plants showed up on their own:
In the fall of 2016, I removed most of the swamp lilies, but some have grown back from root segments I left in the ground. 
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