Today was another day of moving plants. And of course, buying more flowers. Just a few little violas to put in the ground and add some color. Our daughter and I put all these in the ground:

• moved silver mound Artemisia from front to back
• moved 2 sedums, 2 Gaillardia, and a blue Salvia from front to back
• moved white milkweed to butterfly bush bed
• buried blazing star and globe thistle corms and bare roots
• sowed Feverfew seeds by the stump out front

I focused on the herb bed today. I started by ripping out the goldenrod I had planted last year. It spread aggressively, more aggressively than I wanted, and it was going to make a mess of things. I left what was up on the back hill from last year, but I ripped it all out of the front beds.

In the herb bed, our daughter planted the violas, and I trimmed the lavender. I cut all the dead flower stems from last year and pruned about a third of the plant material, cutting shoots from inside the mounds and around the edges as well. The lavender still appears to be dormant.

I also trimmed back all the woody herbs, like the Russian sage and the thyme. Poking around in the centers, I do see a little bit of new green growth, so I’m hopeful they survived last October’s divisions and transplants. The roses also have new growth, so I should prune those as well. The red bud has tiny buds on it. It will be in bloom soon.

Once I got the bed tidied up on the inside, I went around the edges manually with a half moon edger, dug a trench between the lawn and the bed to discourage grass from growing into the beds. Then I fertilized, and then I mulched.