A sight that stays with me is the tall thick lavender by the parking area at Mougins, my favorite stop for dinner in the south of France, whether for Roger Verget's Le Moulin de Mougins or one of the many others neighboring it. On my first visit, when we experienced the thrill of dining at Le Moulin, and when I came away with herb jellies and other goodies from the shop, I was struck by that fantastic lavender, all in bloom, so beautiful and so fragrant, and for goodness' sake, it was just a public parking area. Now Le Moulin has been sold, I can't get away to the south of France in any case, but I thrill to being able to just step out my front door and harvest lavender right off the walk.

When in bloom, it's always full of bees and butterflies, but I can still manage to cut quite a bit without disturbing them. And I've just harvested some, and come inside to make little wreaths - for centerpieces or to ring candles - and bunches to put in vases or lay in drawers. Nice work if you can get it!

I learned from an Italian friend who visited that the scent is greatest before the flower buds open. Check it out when you get a chance, it's true. I'd always waited to collect the flowers. Now, I will gather unopened buds to dry and use for sachets. But when time gets away from me, I gather the flowers as I've just done, and still enjoy their look and scent, even though I now know it's not the most intense it can be.

Ever since acquiring this property, it's been my intention to turn the small patches of lawn on the entry side of the house into never-need-mowing herb lawns. After all, there's not much grass really there, certainly not much of any desirable kind; what goes on there is a march through the progression of perennial weeds. And it takes too much last-minute trimming for the area to look good for guests. A main concern for a B&B is to keep things looking good while reducing the labor involved. Quite a few people have tried to tell me that there's nothing easier and faster to deal with than a simple patch of grass, but anyone who's been here knows that I haven't been convinced. So, since I got to stay here year-round this year, I thought this would be the spring to do it. I did clear out the southern patch, the one bounded by the entry walk/ramp on the north, house on the west, wall of English ivy on the south. Hoed out the grass roots and the weeds and got a pretty clear area to work with. I started moving lemon balm, monarda (bee balm), thyme and spearmint to the four edges, to work gradually inwards. Moved bluebells to encircle the weeping cherry but they didn't like it a bit: those glossy, taut lily-like leaves lost all signs of life, but I'm hoping that the bulbs survive and we'll get a nice display next spring. But then the temperature started nudging 90 degrees every day - just too hot to start small transplants, unless I put a sprinkler on every day, and that's a wasteful method. I'm holding off, and that means large patches of dirt, and grasses creeping back in. Will work on it as I can, and in the meantime: apologies ...

You'll have realized that massive applications of herbicide are not my approach to gardening. What organic gardening means to me, in 25 words or less: Weeding with a shovel. (Are you old enough to remember cereal-box contests?) Pokeweed and pigweed, bane of my existence. After johnson grass, that is. And ragweed! Less numerous are jimson weed and lamb's quarters.

But other common "weeds" I can easily live with. I don't mow the field north of the barn when the buttercups are in bloom: I think they're a lovely sight. I like the spreading violets and the white clover is actually good butterfly habitat. I tried to remove oxalis when I first came here, but that turned into my first "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" response, as it's so persistent, and actually pretty. I moved oxalis plants to ring the fountain, and let them grow alongside the back sidewalk. But last year, the funniest one came along: great mullein (Verbascum) in the front yard; and it so amused me, I left it. After all, it's grown in England for herbal remedies, or so I read, so I consider appropriate to herb gardens. This year Rudbeckia is popping up in that same yard, and as my mother loves daisy-type flowers, and these black-eyed susans are also good butterfly habitat plants, they're being left alone as well. I had tried moving them a couple of years ago, to make a patch out by the locust trees, but they didn't survive transplanting, so now I'll try letting them spread where they are.

The March display of forsythia is so bright and cheerful: greedy me, I've always wanted to double it. Forsythia is at the north (roadside) edge of our yard, in a nice long line - challenged by locust trees and upstart sumac and pokeweed that needs digging out every year. I make the roadside of that line a service drive into the property for when trucks need to get back to the well or the propane tank. Finally, fall 2009, I did plant (with much help from a friend!) a parallel line of another couple dozen forsythia, so that the drive will be between the rows of shrubs. I buy plants such as these in quantity from Greenwood Nursery and have had good luck with them. They were the source of all my lilacs, for example. (Seems McMinnville, TN and area have a number of growers that sell in quantity online, very reasonably.) Now I can see little yellow blossoms all along the slender stalks planted 4 months ago. Can you see the tiny dots of yellow? Nice reward for the labor, and gives hope that in another two or three years, there'll be a very golden display out here.

If we could all see weeds as "wildflowers" - whether they are or not - how much easier it would be! There are some perennial weeds that I just hate the sight of, like henbit. Why this one in particular bugs me, I'm not sure, as you wouldn't necessarily consider it ugly, but I do take its appearance as nearly a personal affront. On the other hand, there are some perennail groundcover weeds I can easily live with. One is Duchesnea indica, known as Indian mock strawberry.

My first year here, I noticed this rather attractive plant, looking like a wild strawberry. Just a few inches high, bright green leaves, in threes, spreading by runners; small yellow flowers and eventually little red fruits. Looked like a strawberry plant, acted like a strawberry plant, must be - ? Called the local extension office but our officer there had no idea. So I looked online and found it. NO relation to strawberries (Fragaria) at all. And I had noted that the little fruits were actually not so interesting: no scent, small, a little grainy. Reportedly, no scent, no taste, but innocuous, nothing toxic here. So I decided this is one I can live with. I find it quite an attractive groundcover, really, and it's easy to pull up when it starts crowding something I've planted. There are some bare areas under the crepe myrtles that have been hard to deal with, especially since I found that voles will devour any hosta I plant. So this is my solution: love the one you're with, so to speak.

October planting

One of my last garden projects in October was adding to the peony collection. Most visitors haven't seen the main rose garden, the lilacs or the peonies, but these sections should be ready for visitors next spring. What guests have seen, if they've come in spring, are the glorious bouquets. Peonies are so big and lush, people are really stunned by their size and beauty. Few seem to know how very easily these exotic blooms can be had.

Peonies are best planted in the fall, and even early winter seems fine. The first peonies here didn't go into the ground until mid-December, and every single one of those 16 plants bloomed the first year, and true to form. The next lot went in in November two years ago, and this year I got them in the week of October 19. We'll see if there's any difference. In any case, it's not a hard job, certainly not in the sandy loam we have here. Dig a hole about a foot deep and something more in diameter, make a cone of soil in the center, and lay the peony with buds up on top of that cone. If you're lucky, the peonies will have some long roots, so settle them carefully with lots of room. The important thing is to not plant deeply. Here in zone 7, I plant them with just about an inch of soil on top, and so far, so good. They say peonies won't bloom if you plant them too deep. You can see the planting is successful: these photos are of a bucket of blooms, just cut, set on the ground to photograph before bringing them inside to make several bouquets.

Your plants won't even want fertilizer the first year, and after that, very little. When blooming is over, leave the foliage until winter. I'd been cutting the plants to the ground anytime after October, but this year read that they should be left until the first hard frost, so now I'm waiting. When you do cut the brown foliage, cut it just above the ground and get rid of it. Don't leave any debris around the plants. It's true that the plants are not attractive after late summer, so you might consider that when choosing where to plant. Don't crowd other plants around them, though: they do like air. Keep in mind that each plant can spread to about two feet in diameter, and they should have air space between them to prevent fungus.

Peonies do not need to be sprayed. I don't spray pesticides anyway, but point that out to gardeners who do. When the flower buds form, they have a sticky substance that ants love. Don't do anything about it. When you cut flowers to bring indoors, spray them off with water and let the flowers drip dry over the sink.

Many peonies will need some help, and that is in supporting the branches as the large heavy blooms develop. Most garden centers sell metal stakes with a horizontal loop on the end, not closed so that you can slip it around the peony stem. I prefer these, but of course you can use slim bamboo stakes and velcro ties or any other method.

Heaven Scent emphasizes wonderfully scented plants, and some peonies are in this category. But not all; some actually have a rather unpleasant scent, and some none or nearly none. Check plant descriptions carefully when buying. The variety of blooms is tremendous; not just the big lush white or pink or fuschia blooms your grandmother may have grown. Here, for example, is a little vase with some singles and semi-doubles.

By choosing early-, mid- and late-blooming varieties, you should be able to enjoy a month of blooms. I get the greatest number of blooms in the first and second weeks of May, in good time for Mother's Day. It is said that you can cut stems while the buds are still tight, wrap them in plastic and put them in the refrigerator, and take them out a month or two later to let them bloom. But I've never been willing to chance foregoing the full opening of the whole lot.