I’m waiting until we cut down the ole cedar tree tomorrow before I decide what to do with that area behind my herb garden but I’m leaning toward doing absolutely nothing until I get used to what it looks like empty. Then I’ll decide for sure. It might very well be the best thing to do is nothing. It would give everything a little more sunshine and cedar trees take a lot of nutrients out of the soil so maybe things will grow better back there.
Behind the tree I have placed rocks in an oval and I put all sort of just leftover flowers back there. Since it’s rather shady I have a lot of hostas. I also have baby’s breath and a few other perennials planted there. I have two wild roses that I let grow just for making potpourri and using in cooking. I think I’m going to plant more flowers and have a cutting garden. Don’t you think that that would be a very pleasant thing to look at from the bench in the herb garden? Fresh flowers each day for my castle - oh my, I’ll feel like a duchess! I’m looking at buying one climbing yellow rose and ditching the wild roses. I’ve got wild roses in the woods. That would be really attractive I think. I love lupines so I might put some of those back there too. I have some gladiolas that have come up year after year in my herb garden and I think I’m going to dig them up and put them back there as well and intersperse other plants around them for when they die back. Maybe zinnias would do well. Anyway, this will also leave more room in my herb garden for more herbs. I like some flowers in my herb garden but the glads were taking up a lot of room plus they tend to flop. They were flopping over onto some of my herbs and I really hadn’t figured out a way yet to contain them and still allow them to be pretty, so this might work! I have some Sweet Annie growing right in with the glads so I’ll never miss them. It's hard to make some of these decisions because I want it just right and generally, Mother Nature has her own idea how she wants things done!
I’ve made a lot of mistakes planting my herb garden . . . but I’ve learned a lot too. It’s like-plants almost have a mind of their own. If they don’t like where they’re planted, I don’t care what you do to them, eventually they’ll give up the ghost. There are others that you can just about throw into the garden and they will thrive with no attention at all. Believe me, I’ve lost my share trying to get them to grow where "I" wanted them. So consequently, I’ve tried over the years to pay attention to what my plants are saying to me.