A herb garden, neglected

That will teach me for being complacent. I have just emerged from pruning the euphorbias in the herb garden.

And it’s a jungle of mess in there.  The new dawn rose had to be tied into the wall, and I had so much cutting back to do that I could fill an entire compost bin if I fancied.

And being euphorbias, I had to wear almost to the elbow gloves and long sleeves so the poisonous sap wouldn’t get on my skin.

And try and weed the nettles first.  I thought I had sorted out all parts of the garden that were flooded.  But this section took a huge volume of water and muck and I’m finding all sorts of nasties left behind.

Mostly nettles. Ugh.  And I also paid the price of not really pruning and weeding here for a few years.  I could have reduced the euphorbia plants by half.  And even though I diligently cut back the purple sage each February (I love making dozens of new plants in the early Spring). I haven’t been as brutal to the other sage.   And they are out of control. Fetching from a distance. But there are lots of ornamental quince suckers underneath which have taken off.  And two self sown elderflowers trying to gain a good hold.

And my beloved salvia caradonas really took a beating with the flood. I have just one clump left. There used to be four more.

So, sigh, I need to add restoring the herb garden to my list of summer chores.

There used to be ornamental quinces in this part of the garden. Fetching in spring but pretty useless for the rest of the year. So I took them out, but have to deal with suckers ever since.

The curse of taking on a garden from someone who managed to plant two of the most annoying plants that sucker like mad – plum trees and oramental quinces. (I can’t spell Chaenomeles without having to look it up).

The plum trees are pathetic and sucker through acres of the garden. And I mean acres. And the ornamental shrub never ceases to make me grit my teeth and hiss.

Mind you. I was thinking about this today (as I was levering out the bramble roots).  Were it not for brambles and these suckers I might get complacent and do less heavy gardening.  Spend more time just mooching about and enjoying this space, rather than crouching ignominiously on slopes and heaving for all I’m worth on unwanted roots.