#herb spirals

[growingwildgardens]

When people tell you not to put woody perennials in your very tight herb spiral assuming they'll stay compact, this is why:

This is a sage bush that was rotting to pieces and mostly dead about 4 years ago, and has become this giant bush in that time. This thing is easily the size of the entirety of some of the herb spiral recs

Obviously you can prune them but I pruned this guy bi-monthly for years (& have neglected in entirely this year so far bc Im too busy RIP) and if you forget you dont want to be cutting back to solid wood ideally so, eventually, they will get very large. Rosemary and even lavender will do the same.

[callmebliss-got-swamped]

Sorry I’m late I was obsessing over herb spirals

[callmebliss-got-swamped]

I have never been so happy to have a post take off as the herb spiral post because the response was so awesome and people's yearning echoed the one in my heart to the point where I sat up and was like "Wait, why NOT in my garden" and I got free bricks and some plants and some straw and some dirt and made it happen

and I was so excited that I actually started a conversation with my downstairs neighbor who I was nervous about because there was an altercation (not involving me) when they first moved in, and she was so charmed and delighted and full of questions about the different kinds of plants and what they're good for, and I told her this one is going to have purple flowers and this one too, and this one orange and the butterflies will like it, this one will keep mosquitoes away and these two will both be great in sauces, and this one is going to be hot peppers

Her husband planted tomatoes and peas and zucchini and flowers in other parts of the garden, and I told her what they were because she didn't know

and her daughters love getting to have the dark purple-red flowers off the hollyhocks, and the evening primrose is growing back sideways even though her tiny son trampled it, and today I showed her what a tiny centimeter long cucumber looks like just forming at the base of the flower, and we talked about morning glories and birds nests while we circled and delved into the bush that is maybe a boxwood that never got trimming I don't know, dragging forth the bittersweet vines in her two strong hands while I leaned into the wet greenery as far as I could to trim the thick vines until it was a big pile on the lawn and a smaller pile on the driveway and we worked together to carry them to the edge of the woods

where we reassured the helpfulest of her daughters that no, there wasn't any poison ivy in that part there, but to stay away from the far side where it was crawling up the fence all green and red and shiny with itching oils

I gave her a hollyhock, and lavender flowers for herself and her sister, and then showed both girls and their mom how to rub lavender leaves between their palms and inhale deep the beautiful smell of them

This is a little bit of the healing power of gardening, real gardening not where you try to make a patch of earth grow what you want and that only but where you sow a lot of things and tend to it but also let things come up and surprise you

[incensepotionsandplants]

Today’s Tags: Green Witchcraft

Green witchcraft, near to my heart, though I’m clearly fuzzy about how to do it well. Just look at my plants.

Also, gardening, plants, herb spirals, bees,  holly, and herbs (rosemary, marjoram, thyme, sage, rue, hyssop, lemongrass, basil, parsley, lavender, peppermint, spearmint, chamomile, ginger, yarrow, dill, bay leaves).