I made a gardening mistake, this year. Enthused by the success of the African basil last summer, and the endlessly interesting pollinator show that unfolded in its airspace from dawn to dusk, I doubled up this late spring, and placed two plants in each of the windowboxes lining our terrace.
After a slow spring start - the plants really don't like cold nights (did you know that basils are native to Africa and to Asia?) - this long-stemmed hybrid is now bustling with bees. That's not the problem. The problem is that it has to be watered at least twice, and sometimes three times, a day. This morning I watered it at 10am. By 2pm the plants were drooping. Granted, it is extremely hot (96°F), but at the very least this basil asks for two waterings a day. Two minutes to fill the watering can; in out, in, out. It feels like a persecution.
The other basils, growing mostly in cooler spots or in full shade, are much less thirsty.
In other hot-weather news, the lablab beans have taken off and the bronze fennel is six feet tall. If we are lucky the fennel flowers will attract some cicada killers. They did, last year. The lablab beans we eat, and the hummingbirds visit their flowers on their way south, in September.