Herb enhancement.

Having developed some mystery virus I haven't been gardening this week, in fact I haven't been doing much more than feeling grotty.

This is frustrating when the weather is good and there are jobs to be done but that's life, isn’t' it?

So when I felt better it was time to shake off the dust and get my hands dirty and the thing I wanted to do the most was dig out the herb garden and reposition the box edging to allow the herbs to grow. It's a common fault of mine that I always plant things too close together because I want instant results. Each book I read tells me to factor in the eventual full height and spread of my plants and sometimes (but only sometimes) I take heed. The herb garden was not one of those times.

I have three different sages just bursting out over the box and some thymes which too have spread out and will soon need more space. I don’t want to curtail the herbs nor lose the sharp edges of the box so my best bet is to enlarge the space.

At present the box edging is in a spiral shape with a lavender in one circle and a rosemary in the other. I had originally had the standard Bay in the larger circle but the winter weather killed off the main plant so I replanted that in a pot, cut it right back to the ground and now have a 10 inch tall bay that I am training to have a twisted stem. I've pulled up and tweaked off the other Bays shoots and have planted one of the shoots to make another Bay plant. I'm going to put the new Bay into the space where the evergreen rosemary had been and move that to where the lavender is right now. That's because the lavender is not evergreen so won't look good in the wintertime. I'll put the other lavender in the lavender bed by the greenhouse door. The trick is to prepare the hole you are going to put the plant into first before you dig up the plant so it can be moved as quickly as possible which limits the shock to the plant. I always puddle the hole first by filling up with water and letting that drain away. Actually it's a good idea to do this just to see what the drainage is like. If the water takes ages to drain away it might be worth digging in some sharp sand to improve drainage and make the soil less boggy. Of course, this depends on the plant itself and the soil conditions it likes.

Although I'm keeping the basic shape (an S shape with one of the curves half as big as the other) I am reversing the herbs so that there is more room for the three sages to spread whereas the smaller thymes can fit into the little circle. The lavender I've taken from one end has been added to one of the lavender beds by the greenhouse – these bring the insects close to the greenhouse and if we have the door open they often fly in and pass on the pollen to other plants. We keep the windows of the greenhouse open so there's always an escape route for the bees and their compatriots.

I'd love to have a Fennel plant at the back of the herbs but it's a bit late in the season for one.

Things take so much longer to do than you imagine and it's almost an entire day's work but it's worth doing it properly. I just had time to mow the lawns, back and front, before planting up four spare box plants – one in each corner of the vegetable plot and a trip to the garden centre for a few fill in plants in the border (well, it's a small indulgence, isn't it?) and then it's inside to see the housework still waiting!