The plant that nearly got me in trouble

25 May '07 7:18 am

My neighbour has this HUGE plant that I literally fell in love with. He suggested I come over and dig up a couple of the off shoots, which I gladly did.

Now, yes I am a granny and yes I sould be past doing stupid things for shock value, but hey, I love a good laugh.

So I grew my little plant which quickly became a big plant, in a container in the front garden so the whole world could see. Before it put out its big showy red flowers, I had no less than 12 policemen stop at the curb and stare. Then on 3 different occasions I had police come into the yard, look and then leave. But one very stubborn policeman refused to believe that it wasn't what it looked like. He came to the door and questioned me about it.

The funniest thing, though was the time I went to the store, came back and ALL the leaves had been stripped from my plant. Apparently by someone who thought they were going to get a free buzz!!

I had a full growing season of fun with my plant in its container in the front garden. So when it died back in 2005, I planted it in the ground in the back garden where it can live happily without anyone stripping it of its leaves.

The plant is a Texas star hibiscus. To the average person, it looks for all the world like a huge pot plant. Laughing

It grows every well in my back garden, dying back totally every yar and them coming right back in the spring. By summer it is putting out these huge, red, star shaped, 5-petaled blooms. It does have a seed pod, but I've not found evidence that any of the fallen seeds have germinated. The new growth is always from the roots of the old.

Here in North Carolina we had a very early, very warm spring. By mid April we had experienced at least 2 weeks of temperatures above 80. Then suddenly we had 3 nights of temps in the mid-20s. At that point the Texas star had decided it was definitely spring and had put up at least 10 new shoots. By the second morning of the freeze, they were all just little, black, shriveled things. But it has since set out new shoots and is doing quite nicely.

I don't have pix at the moment of the blooms, but will post them when they blooms.

Here is a link to an album with several pix of the Texas star.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/carversdaughter/album?.dir=ac3cre2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

30 May '07 2:06 pm

Yes well... I can see a similarity of sorts so no wonder you've had so much trouble with it. Laughing

4 Jun '07 8:45 pm

Certainly to someone walking by it would appear from thr structure of the plant to be from the cannabis family. It appears that it would grow to a pretty good height. Please post some pictures when it is in bloom I would love to see it.

4 Jun '07 9:59 pm

Oh, I will definitely post pics when it is in bloom. I am very proud of my garden - didn't start to garden till age 55 and think I am doing pretty well.

So now that I have found a spot where I can post pix of my garden, I will probably have everyone going *Oh no, not another post from pagan lady*. Laughing