Why Knot Plant a Knot Garden?

 With my new book MUMMIES EXPOSED! arriving on May 7, it's been a busy time . It's spring, after all, and I need to get outside to clean up after Old Man Winter and get ready to plant flowers.

 I'll get you a mummy activity come fall. In the meantime, how about planting a flower-and-herb version of an Elizabethan knot garden?

Like Elizabeth Tudor, England's Queen Elizabeth I?  Of course you can. Why Knot?

There's an excellent example of a knot garden here in the U.S. at the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There, head gardener Jeff Lewis cares for the twining shrubs that look like knots, and he plants the spaces in between them with herbs in spring.

Jeff shared a wonderful photo of this garden in early spring, when it’s easy to see “the bones” of the garden before lush green herbs take over in summer. Go on over to their website at http://elizabethangardens.org/

It takes years to establish a knot garden like this one, but you can create an updated version to grow in just one summer. All it takes is a bit of space, bedding plants, a digging tool, fertilizer, and regular watering.  
Here's a waterwise example from the Cooperative Extension website: https://articles.extension.org/pages/61669/water-wise-knot-gardens

 From Elizabeth I: the People's Queen comes this activity. It's knot a problem, I promise!

Photo credit: Double Down Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0