The first garden day came on Sunday when temperatures rose to 60 degrees. The Herb Garden in front of the house has been clear of snow for about a week but there has been no sun, only grey skies and lots of wind. You can see that I did not cut everything back in the fall.
I only made the first pass, so it doesn’t look new garden bed neat, but everything is cut down, raked out, and I did pull out grass and a few weeds.
I’m sure this is a new kind of selfie – I didn’t notice my shadow. You can see how wonderfully strong the sun is. At last! The herb garden is about 34 feet long. It always surprises me to find out how much is green and growing underneath the winter debris. I found chives and garlic chives which was no surprise, but also lemon balm, autumn crocus shoots, golden marjoram, horseradish shoots, yarrow, and Fulda Glow sedum. The real surprise was some tiny fine parsley shoots. Parsley is a biennial which means it send up a flower to make seeds in its second year. Theoretically you should get two springs of usable parsley, but that has never happened for me. I only expected soft rotting old parsley remains, but in one spot there were parsley shoots which should be usable before I can start snipping the new parsley starts that I will plant soon.
It must be Spring!
Doesn’t it feel good to get out and stretch those gardening muscles. Seeing new green shoots is always exciting.
I was able to get out yesterday and do some pruning before the rain came. Still lots of clean-up to do.
Lisa – Very exciting. Today I clean out the Shed Bed where several roses are planted as well as a Vigorous hardy kiwi vine.
Denise – LOTS of clean up, but so good to be out in the sun.
My theory about not cutting back everything is always, that “those plants that I didn’t cut back act like mulch until spring”.. not really, but that’s how I feel better. It’s so much fun to see those bits of green peeking out at this time of the year.
It is a beautiful herb garden. Will you be taking a few snippets with you?
Layanee – I will definitely take snippets with me. I thought ahead last fall, and took a number of divisions and put them in the veggie garden. I’d divide up a few more plants in May.