Perennial Basil

(Ocimum sp.)

If you’re after a pollinator plant I highly recommend perennial basil. Regular basil also ticks that box but it won’t always make it through winter and as an annual, only flowers when it’s going to seed (after which it dies). Perennial basil on the other hand flowers all year long. The only time mine are not in flower is when I’ve given it a hair cut and cut the flowers off!

You’ll see all my photos below are of bees on the basil flowers because there are always bees on the flowers (and they’re so much fun to photograph).

There are a few different varieties of perennial basil, but they all flower and bring the bees in. You can eat it too, but personally I find it a little strong.

Perennial basil is also super easy to propagate. Just take a woody stem, cut off all the flowers and most of the leaves (leave a few) and stick it in the ground. That’s pretty much it. You can root them in water or in potting mix too.

My only tip with leafy plants like this (salvias can be a bit the same) is to give it a good prune every now and again. They are such good growers that they can often become a bit top heavy - particularly after good rain when the leaves are all wet - and are prone to falling over and snapping or splitting. If it does happen it’s not the end of the world - just prune the broken bits off, the old bit will reshoot and the new bits can be used to propagate more plants! But if you trim it occasionally you will keep it nice and bushy and let a good solid stem develop so this is less likely.

full sun/part shade, drought hardy, 1.3m tall