I am back to gardening

I am back to gardening, it is amazingly therapeutic, I didn;t think I would enjoy my garden after Mom passed away, but the green colors make me peaceful inside. So, I want more green.

For now, it is mostly browns and yellow, though. Because I was not paying attention to anything except Mom for 2 months, several things in the garden have died off. The ferns and the Aztec grass died completely. Both  wax myrtles looked dead. After repeated watering, one have seems to recover, while another has only two branches that are still showing new growth. I want to give it a full chance to recover, so I will leave it for this summer, to see whether it can come back.

This week I decided to go ahead and plant some herbs, so that they would have enough time to establish before I had to go to Russia. I replanted my rosemary plant into a larger container (where the basil used to be), and planted some oregano underneath. I also took some seeds of anise and cumin from my pantry and sprinkled them on top to see whether any of them can be used to grow herbs. I cleaned up my sage plant (which survived the winter amazingly well) and I planted some marjoram and, I think, melissa (lemon balm) around it. I also dedicated a full container to thyme (which I have never had much luck with), and a half of a different container to cilantro.

Today I went to Lowes and checked what they got. I was amazed at how few aromatic plants they carry. Most of their shrubs and perennials and annuals are in bloom and the nursery looks wonderful, but it smells like wet soil and greens, not like flowers. So many flowers looked magnificent on the shrubs, but they either smelled like dust or did not smell at all. Even gardenias that they had there did not had much of a smell.

I considered some blueberry and raspberry shrubs, but decided against them, since they are not a part of my original plan. I ventured to find some lilacs, and found 3 varieties. The best smelling one was Mount Biker (?) white lilac, it smelled exactly, exactly as I remember it from childhood. One smaller-flowers blue one was Persian Lilac, and it had a pleasant but faint smell. The third variety, Kim (?) was not in bloom yet, but showed many buds for the blooms. I decided to get both the white one and the Kim one to see when and how long they both bloom. Kim will be a smaller-size shrub, which is good. Mount Biker one will grow 10-14" it says on the note, and I don't know where I would put it in my yard, but I love the smell so much I want to keep it, I just need to figure out how to keep it from growing too tall.

Next to lilacs were citrus fruits, and I was amazed how fragrant was their foliage. I picked one small citrus shrub, a mandarin orange, that was covered in while fragrant blooms. The smell was magnificent, so sweet and fresh, I could smell it whole day long! Lilacs were $17 each and Citrus plant was $27.

I was also tempted to get some fresh lilies and other plants for the pond, but decided to wait and visit that pond store that I wanted to visit last year.