Winter Mist, you deserve the Black Thumb Executioner Extraordinaire award for killing your borage. I was sure it couldn't possibly be done! This is not written to make you feel bad, I hope you know that. My sympathies go out to you BUT I'm still awestruck. I wish I'd known you a few years ago and I'll tell you why.

One spring I innocently bought a small borage plant, thinking of how nice it would be to see the cute little upside-down purplish-pinkish flowers and have bits of borage floating artfully in iced tea, just like you always see in all the herb magazines. I transplanted it successfully to the perfect location as described in all the herb gardening books, sat back, and waited for my dainty flowers and cool soothing leaves to be ready.

The plant took off like a rocket. It flowered like mad. I had more cutesy wee fairybell flowers than I knew what to do with. And the borage itself, originally only a few inches tall, was nearly my height by the end of the summer, a massive bush. When I trimmed it back, it would come back twice as hard. A monster, yes. That's not the end of the story though.

Nowhere did I read how invasive it can be. Nobody happened to mention that. It was worse than mint! The following spring, I had baby borage shoots rearing their fuzzy little heads up all through my garden. Patiently I plucked them out, dug the scraggly sneaky roots out as well as I could, and still there was borage popping up everytime I turned around. I even resorted to ripping out the mother plant by the roots. The children and grandchildren marched on. At the peak of summer, borage was coming up through cracks in the cement patio. I even saw some growing in the weedy swatch around my neighbor's garbage cans, which was on the other side of a brick alleyway. I never did get rid of it all, and believe me I tried everything except RoundUp, which I wouldn't use on my worst enemy.

When I moved out three years later, the borage was still there. I will never have that herb in my garden again. If only I had known you then, Winter Mist, I would have gladly paid roundtrip transport from your house to mine and back again, just for one little pinch of that black thumb on the borage.