Do you mean by herb wheel the shape of the old western stagecoach wheel with the spokes separating the different herbs and would it be laid out on the ground rather than stood upright. I think it sounds really nice and again would fit brilliantly into a circular scheme near your seating/dining area. ( I still keep coming back to circles Kazzie don't I? Just ignore me !!)
Alison

Ah, Alison... that's why I'm thinking herb wheel - to fit in with the other circles! I was thinking flat or slightly raised (I need pictures / ideas) and probably shaped (wheel / spokes) with small bricks and yes, the spokes separating the different herbs. Someone suggested different lavenders instead of herbs. I'm toying with ideas

I think herb wheels are really appealing but the herbs might need a lot of controlling as, in my experience they're not dainty, moderate, well-behaved plants. In a year or two you'd have great swathes of catnip falling over and all the mint would be into everything. The parsley would refuse to grow at all and the lavenders and sages would get shaded and scraggy. The angelica and fennel would have swamped the thyme and killed it, then died leaving a great big hole and volunteers all over the garden. Coriander would grow but run uselessly to seed the second I turned my back. The hyssop would have given up the ghost because of being pruned back int the old wood. Rocket would be rampant and delicious as long as you're not picky about the fleabeetle holes.

At least, that's what would happen in MY garden! Hope yours is different!

What about doing an alpine wheel. They take time to develop and are pretty dainty flowers in so many varieties and colours it would look wonderful. I'm just looking for the nearest broken stagecoach now. Yee Har !! Three wheels on my wagon.. and all that. Gosh that shows my age. I loved that song when I was a child. Bet none of you even remember it. I loved westerns and always read books about them when I was young. My mum once said to me "you'll not learn anything reading that" and I said "I know how to cook a turkey underground"
Alison

Garden Nurd... thank you so much for the information. You have helped me decide NOT to have herbs!

Alison... I've never heard the song you refer to!!! Your idea regarding alpines is excellent... I'm looking into that now. I had some success with alpines in my previous garden. Thank you for the direction (Yee Hoo)!

Now to work out what to do with the rest of the space!

Herbs are wonderful !! But I would suggest that you really have to play around with them in your own garden. In mine a herb wheel would result in huge amounts of borage,lemon balm and fennel, piddling amounts of parsley and mint, fairly good oregano and loadsa basil. :)

Just experiment, it's FUN :)

Kazzie - you have to remember that you are much younger than I am so that song would never have been played in your youth. It was a silly song really about some cherokee Indians chasing a wagon of settlers and as the song goes on, the wheels go down to two, then one, then no wheels where the Indians have captured the settlers before they could get to the hidden cave, where - had they reached it they would have "watched the Cherokees go galloping by." (I said it was silly)
Anyway back on topic I put a few alpines in the little rockery at the edge of the pond and they are now starting to grow and some are already in flower. In fact some of them are shown in the first few clips on the video of the garden on my website. They are so pretty and dainty. Another idea if you still want herbs but don't want them to run riot could be to place them individually in circular containers, but placed in a group together forming another circle. They could be different heights depending on how tall they grow so that they all reach the same height to make a circular masterpiece when looking down on them.
Alison

Herb wheel pictures always look really pretty in the books, but as everyone else said: it won't last long. UNLESS... you make it a thyme wheel. There are so many different types of thyme in various shades of green that it could be really lovely. You wouldn't lose the definition so easily - especially if you use some nice stones to make the spokes.
Having said that... a lot of my thyme dies in the winter, but I keep trying different locations and different soil. I'm determined to have lots of thyme in the garden (either spelling will do...)

My thymes tend to die as well!

An alpine wheel sounds like a much better idea, reminds me that I was planning to do some sort of alpiney thing on my flat shed roof last spring, and didn't get round to it.

I think we'd all like to know how to cook a turkey underground! Are you going to tell us?

SilkVelvet... thanks for the tip, think I'll stick to the John Lewis Herb set I got for Christmas.

Alison... I'm speechless about the song!!! I'm off to take another look at your garden video to: spot the alpine!

Anyanka and Garden Nerd... good luck with your thyme. Mine did well on a well drained sloping site (part of a historical waterfall set-up).

I also wonder about the underground cooking of a turkey ritual!

Well as a child, as I said I read a lot of westerns. I would go to the library every week and get loads of books out eventually going into the adult section for more. My favourite was a book about a boy called Pocomoto written by Rex Dixon. There were loads of books about him and I would read each one, always searching for another and bought quite a few of them with my pocket money.(they cost 2 shillings and sixpence in old money which was my whole weeks pocket money - 12 and a 1/2 pence) In one of the books he was off with a cattle drive and learned how to cook a turkey underground, so hence me saying that to my mum. Now unfortunately Garden Nerd and Kazzie, it is such a long time ago (1967ish)that I cannot remember how to do it. I still have the books I bought about Pocomoto after all these years but in a way I am too nervous to re-read them because I am afraid that if I do it will break the magic of my memories as they could be rubbish !!. I remember doing that with some Enid Blyton books and as a Child I never saw all the clues to the five find-outers till near the end of the book, but obviously as an adult it was so clear I couldn't believe that I hadn't worked them out.
Anyway to get back on topic Kazzie did you see the alpine right at the beginning of the video ? If anyone else wants to look it's www.the-horsfalls.co.uk That was actually the old pond and I have transferred the alpines and bought new ones for the new rockery. Yesterday I bought a few little heathers to go in the gaps I still have. They are sat in my frogery now waiting to be planted, but not in todays weather. It is freezing cold and very windy. The frogery is actually my chill out room. It is filled with shelves full of frogs of all shapes and sizes, soft toys and beautiful ornaments. The tiles round the fireplace are frogs and I just love it. My grandchildren call me grandma ribbit and they love to go in and look around. It now consists of lots of their books and a toybox for them but they still like to touch and play with the frogs.
Alison

I was a famous five fan!

Any pictures of your 'froggery'?

Tomorrow, I have been invited to visit a landscaper's own cottage garden. Hopefully I'll gather some more ideas for the 'wheel'.

Hi Alison Froglady, & everyone,

Brought back happy memories of buying Armada paperbacks with my pocket money (2s/6p)at Smith's on Saturday mornings. Mainly Enid Blyton.

The frog room sounds lovely, no wonder you're a popular grandma!

Now Garden Nerd- look at that you have forgotten that the sixpence is a little 'd' not a 'p' it's 2s/6d or half a crown. I still think in old money and imperial measurements a lot of the time. I used to love threepenny bits with their lovely shape.
I will take a picture of the frogery tomorrow in the daylight, but it is rather overcrowded at the moment and I am going to try to thin it out.It looks like a village craft shop with all the shelves full to overflowing. Some will go into the garden and round the pond as I won't be able to just throw any away. I might do 'before and 'after' shots. (then you might get a 'spot the difference' competition 'cos I bet I want to keep them all). lol.
Alison

'Spot the difference'... That sounds like good fun Alison!

Actually, I have a 'spot the difference' picture! A young lad (all of 17) has just mowed my bottom lawn (I've never paid someone to do it before). I told him to leave the upper grass 'cause I'll do it at the weekend (yeah right... look at the weather). Anyway, he brought along his own walk behind mower and I think he's done a wonderful job... the upper lawn looks a disgraceful comparison! Get a load of the lobster farm eyesore on the left of the picture... any ideas for a screening tree?

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Wow, so much grass... sustenance for two dozen guinea pigs on that...

Re the guinea pigs, I had a devil of a job training them to gnaw in a straight line!

Well it is Sunday now so have you got the top grass cut? It really does look nice now. I would definitely employ the young lad. I can't think of any trees that you could hide the lobster works with, but my Ceanothus shrub (californian lilac), after a couple of years is as high as my front hedge and nearly as long. I put it there to hide the horrible hedge and I have had to cut it back every year. My sister has one that took over the whole of her back fence and spread right down the length of the fence. The lovely thing about them is that they are evergreen, have beautiful Blueylilac flowers and are not much maintenence. The darker the leaves the better really as I did buy another variety of them Ceanothus Burkwoodii I think it was. I wanted to make a hedge with them, but found out of 6 I planted only one survived and it loses most of it's leaves and gets very stringy branches. I have cut it back to base before now and it has done slightly better. I really love the one in front of the hedge and it looks very healthy. I have once seen one as a tree. It was a wonderfull sight. I couldn't make up my mind it if was a shrub originally or if indeed it was a tree. Maybe I need to go and look them up. I couldn't get close enough to the tree because I was passing it on a bus. It was in full flower with lovely blue flowers. So if you would like to cover even a bit of the view it would be worth looking one up.
Alison

I love Ceanothus and have cut mine back quite heavily... it's growing by the garage - pic from last summer:
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My brother-in-law lives in Bath and he can't get it to grow. Thankyou for the idea Alison, the back garden could do with a bit of colour down that side.

I stand corrected, Froglady. It seems a very, very long time since since doing those pounds, shillings and pence sums at Junior school!
Is it true ceanothus are short-lived? There's a big one in the centre of my garden and if it goes it'll ruin the whole plan.

After reading your post Garden Nerd, I checked my ceanothus and it looks healthy and ready to produce another year of colour. Its only six years old. I've never heard that they have a short life-span (I know very little about plants).

I haven't heard that they have a short life span either. How long are we talking? I saw one as a tree so I guess that must have lived a long time.
Alison

Yeah, mine's a tree, or it would be if not ruthlessly suppressed. It's at least 10 years old.

I've been told that they have a short life-span, but have found it very easy to propagate from cuttings. I grew a cutting from my ceanothus for some time before I moved - it's now in the ground, and about 2 feet tall - and would take another when that one's coming up for 6-8 years old, as a spare/reserve.
The guy who bought my house trimmed the old ceanothus into a tree shape - it was too close to the path - which looks great, a big cloud of blue.