Progress

Over the last week we've been making progress in the London garden when weather permitted. The steps down from the conservatory doors at least have their base constructed now, but progress upwards is now halted as the forecast is for continuous rain tomorrow.

While Mike has been mixing concrete and mortar, I have been concentrating on getting other parts of the garden dug, raked and planted... well, one other part anyway! We now have a herb border, containing a few plants we'd retained (rue, feverfew and chives), and many more bought on a trip to Ruxley Manor: lemon balm, hyssop, two different lavenders, two different oreganos, marjoram, thyme, angelica, sage, heartsease and tarragon. The bay tree and mint container haven't been placed yet. Interspersed through the other plants are some mustard seedlings which should provide some salad interest.

I'd planned to have the area under the fruit trees as a mini camomile lawn; now that I've levelled and dug over part of it I looked for plants, only to discover that I've missed the planting season so won't be able to establish that until next year.

Herby update

Spring 2014 - sage plant replaced

I've finished clearing the herb wheel - replaced the tarragon and thyme with new plants, clipped the oregano, topped up all the sections with new compost... and dug out as much as I can find of the mint roots. There's one section now left to plant with something new to replace the mint. More chives and parsley will probably be added in the spring.

The sage has grown a lot since the new plant was put in less than a year ago - probably needs cutting back a bit, but that's a job for spring time.