Herb Garden: Expansions and Transplants

Last week I posted “Herb Garden: The Battle of the Bulge” and shared how due to my over-eager planting, the rosemary and lavender were eating each other alive. On Wednesday, Joe tilled up the strip of earth along the fence and we bricked a path from the entrance to the patio. The path now dwarfs the patio, which I downsized to make room for the new bed, but it’s nice having bricks all the way from the deck to the patio.

Nothing in an herb garden has to be permanent – except maybe for a very mature rosemary or lavender. I tend to move plants around in the garden as if they were living room furniture. My theory is that if I pull up enough of a dirt clog with the plant, it shouldn’t be too fussy about the move. Ideally I already have a new hole dug and supplemented with a little peat moss before I dig up the plant. However, sometimes I end up with a line of plant clods and arrange them where I think they will look good together before digging the holes. In this case, the plants I moved were all fairly young. Some of them had only been planted this summer.

I didn’t have the heart to completely pull out the mum, so I moved it back to the corner, while transplanting the Texas Tarragon, English lavender and Camella to the new bed. The Camella, grown for its green tea leaves, is in the northeast corner next to the entrance where it shouldn’t shade out the other plants as it grows larger. I also added the sweet mint from the sink to this bed. I pulled the lemon verbena forward, and now all the plants have plenty of room to grow.