Reclaiming My Sun

A couple of years ago I got rid of my little water garden. Into its place I moved most of my herbs. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the space where the herbs used to be. Some of them are still there. I have a lemon thyme, one of my oregano plants, my sage and one of my chives. To keep the place presentable I split some hostas and plunked them in. It isn't a good spot for hostas. It is in direct sunlight. As I said before full sun is now hard to come by in my garden. I decided the bed has to be put back into production. It has sun. How could I give it to hostas? Really, what was I thinking? But what to do with the ripped out hostas?

The fairly incompetent landscapers that mow my yard have been weed whacking down my hostas on the other side of the fence (see before and after photo above). This is the spot under the crab apple tree where nothing grows well and is in full shade. Usually hostas do ok there, but not if they get weed whacked to death. So I've moved the other herb garden hostas to their place. They are much bigger hostas then the old ones. Do you think the landscapers will notice them and leave them alone? I can only hope.

Now that the hostas are gone, I have a better sense of what is left to do. I need to consolidate the herbs that are left. I think I will get rid of the extra chive plant. I really don't need two of them. I only use one. I've transplanted a part of the oregano to the bare spot between the sage and the thyme at the end. I'll rip out the rest in a bit, but right now the wasps are loving the flowers.

My big impediment to finishing the project is the pumpkin vine. You can see it in the path. It travels from the left hand bed where it was planted, travels along the path for about six feet then heads over the fence. It has no leaves on it anymore. They were killed by mildew. However the plant is still alive on the other side of the fence, and the pumpkin is still growing. It looks like I can just move the vine and dig, but pumpkin vines root into the ground at the leaf nodes. That vine may not have leaves but it does have roots. I really don't want to kill my pumpkin.

So right now I'm stuck. The path is way too wide right there. It should only be 18" - the width of the brick paver I put in the path. It needs to be turned over and compost turned in and allowed to decompose for a while since the compost is still a little green. I'm going to plant garlic there this fall at the end of October. So I do have some time, but not much if I want to use that compost.