The Texas Star Hibiscus ..
Is NOT native to Texas, so why is it named Texas Star? Well maybe because of it's shape which has the shape of a star. This perennial also goes by the names Scarlet Rosemallow, Crimson Rosemallow, and Wild Red Mallow. After all, it is in the Mallow family. The plant produces a beautiful flower and loves growing here in our climate or temperate zone in Southern NJ.
I really prefer calling it Texas Star Hibiscus because that one is the easiest to remember for my soft brain. lol. Any how, the name aside, this plant grows pretty fast once it sprouts in the early spring. The stalks of this plant grow to be about 6 to 8 feet tall. This year I trimmed them down to about 4 feet, or just below the windows, because Molly was getting freaked out. She would see them swaying in the wind and start panicking thinking someone was out there looking in the window.
The blooms on these plants are fantastic. They are bright red and quite large. When they are fully opened, they are larger than my hand, with fingers spread out. Hey, maybe I have small hands.. hehe.
The flower buds and the post flower seed pods both sort of look the same. They resemble little green lanterns in a way. At least I think they do. Also some people confuse this for Marijuana due to the leaf shape. Although these leaves sort of look like pot leaves, I assure you this is not a pot plant. And before you ask, NO.. I did not try drying it out and smoking the buds.
Each bloom lasts about a week or so, then wilts and falls to the ground. They dry up to almost nothing and blow away in the breeze. The plants produce these awesome scarlet red blooms from early June to late September and even sometimes October if the weather is nice enough.
In late October or early November, when I am doing my pre-winter clean up, I will trim them back to the ground. I leave roughly an inch or two of stalk. New Stalks will for the following year from the tubers underneath the soil.. thus perennial. If I would leave the stalks alone, then they would turn brown and not survive the winter. New stalks would still rise the next spring, but the mass of plant material would look messy. I just take them down and save myself the hassle in the spring.
Speaking of pre-winter clean up.. Maybe I will get to that this weekend if the rain holds off. If I do, what you saw today will be no more. For this year at least!
“He told her the story of the missionary's bride who wrote home describing her bungalow in an African forest clearing. "Outside my window as I write is a magnificent hibiscus with hundreds of blooms making a splendid splash of color against the jungle." A year later, she wrote again, and she said outside her window was that "damned hibiscus, still blooming.”
― William C. Heine, The Last Canadian
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