whitegarden, I feel your pain! My creeping thyme has about a dime's worth of green on an 18" diameter plant. I've never lost a thyme before? Lack of snowcover, warm January when it was actually growing, and then back to cold in February? Who knows which one...or, none of the above. But, it's not looking good for my thyme.

Wait on the lavender. Lavender can look dead for a while then you'll see some green growth. I usually wait to trim lavender until I see some growth.

I'm waiting - maybe this rain will convince them that it's ok to grow now. Like triciae, I'm amazed at how dead most of my thyme looks; very unusual to lose the plain kinds of thyme.

If the oregano has really bitten the dust, well that'd be kind of interesting, I've been trying to get it under control for years. Who'd have thought that an unusually mild winter would have wiped it out - but I don't remember seeing any of it out there while weeding this past week.

Thanks for all your responses. I will give them a bit more time.

I'm up here in NH, and my herb garden got whacked pretty hard. All of my thymes took hits, although the creeping ornamentals (woolies, silver, etc.) did better than the culinary varieties. Variegated lemon thyme and English thyme, which were over three feet across, looked dead early on. BUT, they are coming back, some at the tips (branches tend to root) and some near the center, although they look very scraggly. I've pruned heavily and replanted some new plants in the middle of each cluster to fill them out, but left growing tips from the old plants for sentimental reasons (hard to say 'goodbye' to a favorite plant).

At the nursery, when I mentioned my herbs took a hit, the first thing the woman said was that thyme got hit hard this year because of all the freezeÂthaw cycles and the lack of snow cover. That was certainly the case at my place. We had a mild winter, only down to -8F/-22C a couple of times, which made it a mild Zone 6 winter by straight hardiness zone measurements. It had to be the lack of snow cover, constant freeze-thaw and the fact that some plants ended up in standing water that then froze into solid blocks of ice that did most of the damage. Just goes to show that you canÂt rely on the zone maps to tell all.

Other herbs that got whacked, but are coming back: winter savory, roman chamomile and munstead lavender (from both the ground and some Âdead looking branches).

Herbs that bit the dust: Berggarten sage (which survived the last two winters), salad burnet (another one that had survived two winters), Greek oregano (which I thought was indestructible) both Arp and Madeline Hill rosemary (grown as a failed experiment next to the south side of the house), bronze fennel and French thyme.

In general, plants that stayed evergreen or put out fresh growth from above-ground stems were hit the hardest. Herbs that seemed relatively unaffected were those that die back to the ground every year, for example all mints, sorrel, chives, garlic chives, Egyptian onion (actually left a few green stalks all winter), comfrey, French tarragon (yea!), rue, and, surprise-surprise, anise hyssop. One odd survivor - a pot of Ma Huang that I started from seed last spring and left out all winter. It certainly froze solid, but the plant survived.

IÂm probably missing a few herbs, but that covers the bulk of them. Potted herbs that over-wintered indoors, like Vietnamese coriander and broadleaf thymes, have not gone outside, yet. I did put my Mexican culantro out last week, and it does not look happy, but it will survive.

So, whitegarden, I think you might have a chance with at least the thyme and the lavender. But, if they are really alive and just look bad, you might consider filling in the dead spots anyway with a few new plants to make them look better.

narcnh

Thanks narcnh, I am holding out little hope but did resist buying all new plants yesterday.

I too thought my herbs were gonners, but the oregano now looks pretty good and the thyme has really filled in from the bottom. I usually give them a good trim in the spring, but didn't get to it this year. I think that emphasized the 'dead' look. I would hold out if you can. My 4 inch pots of thyme now cover 3 foot square patches, so I would be surprised if they didn't make it. By the way, the bits of thyme that have escaped into the lawn have looked good for awhile now. Not sure why...

Funny, coral, now that you mention it, the thyme in my lawn looks much better than the thyme in the gardens.

And, like narchn, my tiny creepring thymes look better than the culinary type, though one orange thyme did bite the dust. I have tons of the tallish Thymus vulgaris along a path that runs the length of my back yard, and edging many of the beds, and I usually shear it into a little hedge. This year it's not going to be much of a hedge, unless I dig up some volunteers from the beds and fill the gaps.

Any of the lavenders that are still dead-looking when the rain stops (if it ever does stop) will probably be replaced. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed on a dead-looking Sunset Hyssup (Agastache rupestris) in the herb garden, but the chances are getting slimmer by the moment that it's really still alive.

DITD,

My creeping thymes are on a rock wall and spill over the rocks. I wonder if that helped them survive (warmer & drier), or if it was the fact that they are lower to the ground, or genetics, or just luck. What kind of soil are your creeping thymes in?

Also, my anise hyssop, another agastache, popped up out of the ground a good two, maybe three, weeks ago. It's servel inches tall now. As I wrote, I am really amazed that it survived, sincee earlier plantings did not survive less severe winters. Maybe I got a tougher plant by dumb luck? Since I'm a zone colder than you that's probably not a good sign for your Sunset Hyssop, but good luck!

narcnh

Hi narcnh - The survival of the various thymes in my garden seemed really random; the dead orange thyme is at the top of a stone wall, there's another one of same variety, maybe even divided out of the same stepables clump, that survived a few feet away, in a slightly richer pocket of soil on the same wall.

In a nearby bed, on a well-drained slope, I lost mostly the glossy low-growing types, the wooly thyme came through unscathed. The wooly is lower on the slope, and might have gotten protection from overhanging foliage of other plants or from surrounding brick - hard to tell!

Anise hyssop, or Agastache foeniculum, is a lot more vigorous and somewhat hardier than Sunset hyssup, Agastache rupestris. The sunset, which has lavender-like foliage, has intricate salmon colored, tubular flowers and smells fabulous. In my zone, A. foeniculum is such a thug that I'm kicking myself for planting it.
I picked up an Agastache barberi x mexicana 'Tutti-frutti' that's weeks into leafing out. I am just surprised about losing the Sunset hyssop, because it was a few years old. I'm scouting for seedlings from the original plant, and will have to find a new one if there are no offspring.