What did I do wrong? i planted Purple ruffled basil and sweet basil in 6 packs as seed. I guess I must have gotten some of the seeds from the purple basil in with the sweet. No I have these funky mutated plants, that smell a lot like licorice. Wonder if they will be true to the parent (spotted leaves and all) from seed. First one is flowering now. Both are supposed to be perennial basils as well. It's funky, so I had to keep it instead of throwing it away.
I had never heard of a perennial basil. They look interesting.
with the recent basil hybridizing boom, most clones are unstable at best. Seed is variable, and anyone growing them from seed must do a fair amount of culling to maintain a particular selection.
and most basils are perennial, most of us are just not in the tropics. Ocimum sanctum is probably one of the better of almost-hardy basils, although many places are emphasizing the 'perennial' part, no doubt to further thier sales.
slightly disgusting really..
drew
Thanks for the 'explanation' of perennial basils, Drew. If I had used my head, I might have known that, LOL.
Thanks Drew, I just started them from seeds to have them for spaghetti sauce which I want to can up. The spots were a fluke on 3-4 plants and if they come back they do, if not then I'll have plain old sweet basil.
The story gets deeper, not only does it smell like licorce, but the flowers are not white like a standard sweet basil, the buds are lavender, as are the flowers. I'm going to try from the seeds to see what happens. The true sweet basil right next to it has bright green buds and white flowers. If I get seeds, anyone interested in seeing if you can come up with a spotted one as well?
