More Herb Drying

I am just working through my herb drying experiment a little bit at a tim

Yesterday morning, D helped poke holes in two paper bags again.  He actually wasn't in a cooperative mood so that didn't last very long.

I snipped a bit of rosemary:

And a bit of thyme:

And wrapped the sprigs together with old twisty ties, placed into paper bags and then closed with rubber bands, labeled and dated them.  They are also now sitting on the shelf in the study.  It's supposed to rain later this morning so I plan to slip out and snip some more to dry.  I am discovering one needs to harvest a lot of thyme to get just a little of it.  The leaves are so tiny.

I also took some pictures of the garden where I am dissatisfied with the placement of plants.:

In the above photograph, you see the yellow flowering shrubby St. John's Wort to the left and then the thyme with its tiny purple flowers to the right.  Behind them in the back by the fence is my very overgrown oregano (tall green spikes) and then to the right of that a bush of purple sage.  Then there's another taller kind of gangling bush, which I don't recall what it is.  Between that gangling bush and the thyme in front, which is hard to see because the Japanese Stilt Grass is taking over, there are some plantings of rosemary rapidly being strangled out!  I don't know if you can see it but between the St. John's Wort and the thyme there is a gray stone wall.  That bed is slightly raised and has a retaining stone wall.  In order for me to get back to the herbs planted behind the St. John's Wort, I have to hoist myself up on the wall and walk over the plants.  I have several more St. John's Wort planted to the left of the photo, inside the fence.  You can't see it in this photo though. But I really want to get rid of the St. John's Wort shrubs in this photo, so I can easily access my herbs. 

Here we are inside the backyard fence at the other end of the long row of St. John's Wort.  I like the St. John's Wort there.  It's gorgeous, but I hate the tall grassy plants that are behind it.  I just think they overpower the area, are not that attractive and you can't tell from this, but the one on the right is actually shading out a little pineapple guava sapling.   I am really tempted to just cut these bushes way back for now but get them removed and plant something new this fall.