These Happy Gardeners welcome visitors to the North Carolina Botanical Gardens at Chapel Hill.


Even though I’m back from my travels to North Carolina, I wanted to share a bit more of my trip because I visited so many wonderful public and private gardens and saw so many plants I’d never seen before.

We had but a short time at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens, part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I only caught a glimpse of the the gardens’ new environmentally-sustainable visitor education center as the bus pulled into the parking lot.

It was then a mad dash to the gardens to see as much as possible in 40 minutes flat.

I’m afraid I didn’t get too far into the official collection of North Carolina native plants, because I was enjoying the herb garden too much.

The Herb Garden included large beds of culinary and medicinal herbs that were used to treat a number of common ailments, like chest diseases, infectious diseases, rheumatism and other external complaints.

This was my first year growing lime basil and I haven’t been disappointed.

Lime basil (Ocimum basilicum americanum) is a refreshingly delicious culinary herb that I grew from seed as another one of my backyard experiments.

I picked up a packet of seeds at the Colorado Garden and Home Show for two reasons: I love basil and I really love basil. The lime was just an added bonus.

I sowed the seeds in early June in a long, narrow and shallow plastic patio planter by sprinkling them on top of the soil, lightly covering them and keeping them moist.

The planter receives direct sun all morning into early afternoon.

I’m delighted with the results. The plants are vigorous and they filled in the entire container. The leaves are small and narrow and have a wonderful lime aroma and citrusy taste.

I’m especially pleased with the plants because they don’t seem to flower as quickly as other varieties of basil, so it’s easier to keep up with them.