Planting Up Herbs and Flowers

I'm still working hard in the garden every day. Yesterday I put together my two herb/flower beds. Which involved turning over the soil and mixing in compost and fertilizer. The first one is the foundation bed. It is three feet wide. I wanted to easily be able to pick the rosemary that will someday show up and be put in here. So every four feet I put in stepping stones. Three feet is too wide to reach across easily.

From left to right the bed has my climbing rose. Then three mint pots. The area around the mint pots has concrete and very shallow soil. It is where the gas lines come into the house and landscapers didn't give me much soil to work with. It is a perfect place for the mint pots. I did underplant the pots with some borage and forget-me-nots. I'm hoping they self seed in that spot.

Farther on I ran some sweet alyssum across the front of the bed. Between them I'll put some dianthus once they get bigger. But they are still only an inch tall and under my lights. In the back will be two rosemarys and then will be some sunflowers that I have to start germinating. At the end I'd like a sage plant. The sage plant is less than an inch tall so it will be a while for that one. I'm contemplating under planting the sunflowers with some cilantro. I don't think things grow all that well with sunflowers, but I'm hoping it works. Cilantro would get plenty of light and would self seed there every year.

View from my window

The next bed was the driveway bed along the fence. I wanted some pretty flowers in here as I see it from my hall. But then I remembered. That empty raised bed you see - well it will have my tomatoes this year. So the back cages will be six feet tall. I don't think I'll see a lot of those flowers from my window.

From left to right in the bed I planted a bleeding heart in the shady corner. They die back in the summer so I also planted some nasturtiums in front of it. Next is the anise hyssop that isn't here yet. Then five Cerise Queen Achillea.

Then a nice set of annual flowers. In the back are tall zinnias, in the middle is a row of cosmos. In the front are two rows of chamomile. I want them to self seed and continually come up every year. And right by the arbor I wanted a few feet of black-eyed-susans. However even though they self seed invasively all over the garden, I can't get them to germinate in my house. I tried both in the house and wintersown. This week I have one plant that just germinated. I wish I'd known how slow they were. I would have started them earlier. I might have to plant the area with extra zinnias and then pull them later.

Then I remembered one of my favorite plants that wouldn't overwinter well at my last house. Sweet Dreams coreopsis. I loved the different bees and wasps that came to that plant. The green metallic bees especially loved it. But it didn't like the heavy clay soil of my last garden. So maybe these will go there. And yes I ordered them. I hadn't seen them at any of the nurseries I visited.

Two hours later I was cleaning up and noticed my fava beans. Even though I turned over the soil a little in the bed after planting, it looks like most of them made it. They aren't as evenly spaced as before, but they weren't bad. It looks like I will get to try favas for the first time this year after all. Someone was asking about showing my netting tent. Well can you see it in that photo? I thought not. It drapes over the peas in the back and over the favas in the front. Bird netting is pretty invisible.