Tired of herbs and not wanting to do the South Florida thing and grow some citrus, last October I went for the “smelly good” route and ordered a couple of jasmines for the back porch from Florid- based Emerald Goddess Gardens. With the jasmines, they sent me a sapling of Cat Whiskers (Orthosiphon Aristatus) , tiny little thing. Well, a bit of good dirt, some water and care and it just bloomed like the above.
It is supposed to have a bunch of medicinal uses, but what I like it for is that it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. I think I have to go to Big Box Home Center and get a nice hanging basket for it and place it somewhere where we can enjoy the show.
Dear God, I am getting old. I am doing gardening stuff and assorted crap! And I might be in the South, but I refuse to grow tomatoes. That is how the Godfather bought it.
PS: I did not include pictures of the jasmines because they got attacked by some caterpillar and they are no looking too nice right now. They are generating some nice smells, that is for sure.
And the caterpillars found a horrible painful death.
He sleeps with the tomatoes, not the fishes…
As an alternative to tomatoes, how about hot chiles? Habaneros are nice to have around the house.
Or, to help deal with the ammo shortage, you could consider ghost peppers or Carolina reapers. (Rumor has it that ghost peppers were originally an Indian Army project. 🙂 ) Ghost peppers are good on pizza; reapers are beyond my limit.