I'm worrying that my green thumb is actually black.
One of my first plant projects this spring has been to start a potted herb garden. I got five of my favorite herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and sage. I put them in a large rectangular pot on the back patio, near the window over the kitchen sink... and waited.
Almost immediately, the basil started to turn a rather yellow color and not look so good. Were the herbs getting enough sun? According to Paul James, herbs prefer a good amount of direct sunlight -- at least 5-6 hours a day. The back patio is not the place for that; the shadows of the house, the garden shed, and the surrounding trees allow for a little more than half that every day.
So I moved the pot to a stretch of our front lawn near a fence on the property line. That spot gets at least 6-8 hours of direct sun from morning to early afternoon. I also elected to get another basil plant, as I reflected that the first one was sort of runt of the litter when I was at the hardware store nursery anyway. I planted the new one with the others, and transferred the old one to another pot I had sitting around. To take out what I thought was some insurance, I put a "Miracle Gro Watering Can Single" in the watering can and watered the herb garden and several of the flowers around the house.
Fast forward a little more than week, and the drama continues. The new basil plant is doing ok... not great. The thyme plant has pretty much withered and died... except for one stalk that is growing like gang busters... when it previously was one of the healthier looking plants. The oregano and the rosemary seem to be trucking along, and the sage is being its stoic, inscrutable self.
I just added a new chapter to the saga by buying some fuschia plants. I've put them in hanging pots on the front porch. I'm hoping to attract hummingbirds. I had to re-pot them when I got them home. It was not an easy task... I had to remove part of the root balls of the plants to get them in those hanging pots. Right now, I'm just crossing my fingers, and hoping they won't die.
I'm not developing good gardening karma here. Maybe my green thumb deserves to be black.
said drgeek
on 2008-05-01 at 8:58 p.m.
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