Almost Dead, Sort of Dead, Dead as a Doornail

With all the snow in the outside garden, my attention became focused on those plants that I have in the house. This rosemary plant is in the sort of dead category. The leaves have not yet dropped making a mess all over, but they are crisp and dried . The stems snap when broken. Ed asked me if we can save the leaves to use for cooking. I'm not sure as under normal circumstances healthy leaves are harvested from a live plant, dried and then used for cooking. Perhaps being dead first would make no difference or would it? This is not my only rosemary so the decision has been made . This sort of dead plant is headed to the compost.




That brings us to the patchouli plants. The plant on the left is almost dead. It's leaves and stems give a whole new meaning to the word limp. I could try cutting it back, but I did that with the plant on the right, and it is now in the dead as a doornail category. Keeping plants around that look like this does nothing to improve my winter mood. Time for these plants to make their trip to the compost. As far as next year goes, I will always try to winter over rosemary. I'm not sure about the patchouli. Perhaps I should say enough is enough. But I'm an optimistic gardener so probably I'll try just one more time!