Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneFive or six seedlings on 1 June, two leaf pairs tall and each pair turned at right angles to the one below, the newest margins clearly saw-toothed where the oldest are nearly smooth, long white hairs on every stem and purple running up them.Week of 1 JuneHoly Basil in flower on 1 June, its spikes built of separate whorls of pink-mauve calyces stacked up a hairy purple axis with the lowest whorls already dried to buff, every stem below them furred white and flushed purple-brown.Week of 15 JuneHoly basil on 17 June, fifteen young plants with bare soil still showing between them, every leaf pair crossing the one below and every stem furred with long white hairs, each shoot tip crowded into a tight rosette, in soft flat light.Week of 15 JuneHoly basil in dim blue dusk light on 17 June, grown bushy enough now to close over most of the soil, every leaf downy and dulled by a pale bloom, its shoot tips gathered into tight rosettes on pale hairy stems.Week of 22 JuneA Holy Basil on 26 June grown bushy enough to spill over its own rim, dozens of shoots of saw-toothed quilted leaves, and at the tips the first tight green flower heads with their tiny florets just breaking, under flat shadowless light.Week of 6 JulyHoly basil on 6 July, a mound of yellow-green shoots with every leaf pair set square across the one below, long soft hairs standing out white along the stems and jagged margins, and two spikes just beginning to stack up at the tips.Week of 21 SeptemberHoly Basil (Tulsi) well past first flowering on 22 September, its upright spikes grading from pale lilac-pink whorls at the tip to hardened maroon-brown calyces below, square stems shaggy with pale hairs. Flat overcast light, no shadows.
