Next Two Projects: Moving Herbs and Improving a Bench

In  hopes that posting our next two garden projects will get us moving on them sooner rather than later I thought I'd share them with you here. Above is our herb garden. We have a few other herbs tucked here and there but the majority of our herbs are in this narrow planting bed on the sunny side of our house (the back yard is shady and the other side yard is deeply shaded).

I read somewhere recently that plants shouldn't really be within six inches of the house (to keep bugs from nesting in there or climbing from the plants up behind the siding). Of course, I knew they shouldn't be right up close but I guess I thought four inches would be sufficient. Either way, to be safe I've decided to move, trim back and/or divide the herbs that are too close to the house. Some will be given to friends and some will be planted in our hot mess/xeric garden and I might even try bartering some herb cuttings for some coleus cuttings (I want to try to root some coleus for our shaded areas) or milkweed seeds (my kind Facebook friend Rich told me that milkweed attracts monarch butterflies).

My husband said he'd do this one because he likes to be the bearer of power tools but if he doesn't have time to get to it by the time I've finished the above project and am ready for the next one I will likely tackle it (although I might move a bunch of the snow on the mountain from the backyard first because it's choking out some of our more valuable plants).

Clearly the bench needs to be cleaned. But the bigger issue (and the reason we never use it) is that water pools at the base of the seat (and so does debris). Thanks to a Family Handyman book I learned that we can drill small holes at the lowest points of the seat and voila - we'll have drainage. The debris will be easier to brush off because it shouldn't be soaking wet and moldy anymore. Once that's done we plan to move this bench from the back yard to the front yard (there's a spot all ready for it) and we'll have a nice outdoor reading nook.