While I don't claim to be a botanist by any stretch of the imagination, my passion for health - and the use of herbs - has meant a long journey of learning and applying. Since high school days I have always had herb gardens - or failing that; pots of herbs in sunny window spots. If gardens relied on me they would be barren patches of soil with an occasional oasis of herbs. The gardeners in our family are my mother and brother (Mr Aquaponics 
So imagine my horror and embarrassment when my mother commended me on my beautiful tamarisk. Tama-what?!! Where?! What I thought was my magnificent flowering ginger bush! I had been showing off this spectacular purple sight to visitors, as well as plotting my latest post about the very rare ginger bush. I had found this little sapling at a rare herb nursery. I was told that while related to the ginger plant (from which we harvest the ginger root) this ginger bush is quite different. I planted it in one of my herb gardens and waited.
What a disappointment. Not to mention embarrassment. I have learnt a valuable lesson. Firstly that a tamarisk is a deciduous shrub that grows into a tree of up to 8 metres! But my second and most important lesson is that you need to confirm everything! Don't ever accept as fact and truth what you read or hear. I do not by nature have a distrustful nature but I have a very enquiring mind and like to know everything related to a topic. You may pick that up in my posts. I touch on history, geography, application etc but with this innocent looking "herb" I simply didn't do further research.
There's no denying this Tamarisk is magnificent in bloom. My big dilemma now is that if it intends to become a tree it will block all the sunlight to my herb garden. It is also too much of a luxury in the current drought situation so it will probably have to be removed. At least I can share my experience with my readers. The photos will also be entered into the Combination Photography Contest held by 
