My April Flower Bed and starting my Veggie and Herb Garden

I always love it when my friend C.J. shows her weekly "How does your garden grow?" post.   I am going to take you back and show the entire month of April.

After my first hibiscus was killed from a hard freeze, three more appeared.  EDIT: Valerie is correct.  These are hyacinths, and I alway seem to call them by the wrong name.

These tulips

were also casualties of the hard freeze.

The tips of the Surprise Lilies were damaged due to one of the three freezes, too.

Next came the wind, and with it, not snow, but those seeds from the one and only tree in my yard.

Note the area to the right of the walkway and all the leaves and vinca vines trying to work their way to the sunshine.

I assure you, all that "green" in the flower bed is a blanket of tree seeds.

Day Lily, Iris, and Tulip leaves live in harmony among the tree seeds.

My neighbor's yard has lots of dandelions and a visitor.

Make that two visitors.

Actually three, although one hopped out of sight just as I snapped the photo.  The bricks around my neighbor's tree are the one I still need to get from her.

Can you tell how windy it is?

My wind chimes, situated around all three sides of my front porch, get a constant workout.

A few days later, as I was heading out  and about, I was surprised and thrilled to see the first of my tulips that survived the hard freezes.

I'm sure you can see the tree seeds still dotting the ground.

If you know anything about tulips,

you can tell these froze before they could fully develop.

Fast forward to the end of April, and this is what I had to face in my herb garden.  Shame on me for allowing this to get out of hand.

The wind was so strong that once all the pots were out of the garden, the cardboard and papers became airplanes.

I did more chasing than anything else, although I was very happy with the way the blackberry bush turned out.  Note I still need to mow my back yard.

I removed the leaves and most of the vinca vines in this area, but still needed to remove the smaller bricks.  The wind knocked my wheel barrow over as I was taking photos.

One thing I found that made me so very happy was my lily of the valley.  I thought they were all chocked out by the vinca vines.  I transplanted one to the larger area and left two where they were growing (see photo above this one).

The next day I removed the potting soil from the pots and spread it on the veggie garden.

Then I mowed,

saw one of the robins that frequents my flower bed,

and finished cleaning out my new rock garden.

I also noticed one of my irises has bloomed and the wind swept someone's box into my yard.

Although it needs to be cleaned up better, I now realize I must plant veggies in pots for one final year.

Note the new board holding the lasagna garden in place, and the bricks that have been cleaned up.

After mowing the back yard, I brought my herbs

to the back patio.  Much clean-up is needed here, but for now, I'm going to wait until after the storms pass.  I got the idea to grow these here after seeing Divers and Sundry's beautiful patio, which mine will never look like.

Thanks for joining me on this latest venture that has taken so much computer time from me.  I appreciate your visit and will update the garden areas as soon as I have something to report.