Confederate Rose or Cotton Rose (Hibiscus Mutabilis)

The Confederate Rose or Cotton Rose (Hibiscus Mutabilis) is a shrub or small tree from China that thrives in the southern gulf coast of the United States. The Confederate Rose can reach a height of fifteen to twenty feet tall and have a spread of ten feet. The foliage has a coarse texture on the underside and the size of the leaves range in size from five inches to seven inches. In the Dallas Fort Worth area the Confederate Rose will drop its leaves after first frost. After the first frost, the Confederate Rose will die back to roots if the weather stays below thirty-two degrees for more than several nights. From late summer to October, Hibiscus Mutablis will be in full bloom. In the morning the blooms will start out white or light pink and grow darker throughout the day, until it reaches deep red in color. Most blooms only last twenty four hours. The blooms are delicate and range in size from three to five inches. After the blooms have died, a small round seed pod forms. Once the pod has dried, the pod can be removed and the seeds can be harvested.

Plant Care: The Confederate Rose needs little care. Once established, it will thrive in most soil types, but it prefers a soil high in organic materials.
Moisture: The Confederate Rose loves water. In the Dallas Fort Worth Area,
it needs to be watered every day. If the Confederate does not get enough water,
the leaves will wilt and start to droop. If watered in the afternoon or evening the leaves will perk back up.

Hardiness: USDA Zones 7-9.

Propagation: Propagate from cuttings in the spring or in the fall

after first frost. The prefer method in the Dallas Fort Worth Area is to take
cuttings after first frost. Place cuttings in a bucket of water and let it sit until next spring. Depending on the amount of light available and the temperatures, cuttings may form in a few weeks or take as long as 6 months before roots have formed. Propagation can also be done by seed, direct sow after last frost.

Updates...

The last few weeks I have been spending most of my time studying and working on different website and multimedia projects. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will have the time to start working on the garden.

My current project that I am working on is for the Fort Worth Garden Swap website. I completely revamped the main pages, the only pages I could not change were the forums. Take a look at the site. It is still under construction and the client and I are working on some ways to bring in more users.

Fort Worth Garden Swap

Week 6 for the AeroGraden

Its been 6 weeks since I have last posted an update about my new AeroGarden or even to the blog...

Since last post, I finally found a job, and I decided to go by to school for a degree in multimedia design, and other items that I prefer not to mention.

As for the AeroGarden, I love it. The only issues I have with the system is the loud air pump, and sometimes the light timer schedule changes. Orginally I set to come on at 8 AM, then it changes to 10 AM about 2 weeks. Then a week later the timer changed to 12P. Not sure why this happened. And no my power never went out.

The pictures below show the progress of the plants.

2 weeks

6 Weeks

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New Garden Toy for Christmas!

Late last night we got back into town, my wife and I spent the week in Wesson Mississippi and Northport Alabama visiting my relatives. After we got unpacked and visited with friends from out of town, it was to late for us to open our gifts from each other and gifts from her in-laws.

One of my gifts from one of the cousins got me an AeroGarden3! I put its together and so far I love it. I have been interested in these little guys for quite some time. If this smaller one works out as well I hope it does, I will spend the money on several other models I have had my eyes.

I put together the AeroGarden3 in less than 30 minutes. It took me longer to figure out where to put it than to assemble it. The first step is to assemble the arm for the light to the base and install the light bulb. Once the that is complete you then attach the base and grow surface to the system. After the system is setup, you will then add the grow seed pods, seed starting formula tablet, and water. Then plug the system in. The light source will run for 17 hours and be in the dark for 7 hours.

So far, the only thing, I do not like about will live with is the water pump can be loud if you are in a quiet room, you will hear it. But more to come on that later on.

As time goes on, I will report my findings. Below you will find pictures of the assembly process and the completed unit.

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Overwintering is not fun...

Not sure why this didn't post earlier, but I will repost again...

Last weekend, came time to overwinter all my tropicals and start some more cuttings. I converted a wasted space in my garage into a pepper storage area, use my side of the garage to overwinter tropicals and some Brug cuttings, and put the rest on my covered porch.

As for the pepper storage, eventually I will have this up with better lighting but for now this will at least keep them alive and finish off the last of the peppers.

 

The above picture is a small window pot filled with peat and perlite for a batch of cuttings that I could not fit into my rooting chamber. What I did was take three wire coat hangers and cut them down to size and stuck one end on one side and took the other and looped it over. I set one support on each side and one in the middle. Hopefully they metal will not rust before the plants root. 

  

Pepper Plant Storage 

 

This is where my car is suppose to be parked. It looks like I will have to come out to a cold car in the morings.



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Its a been a while since my last post...

Well, its been  while since my last post, and I am sorry. A lot of things have happened in my life lately and I just haven't time nor the money to work in the garden.

First I lost my job back in October and I have not found steady employment yet. Second my grandmother had another stroke and passed away 2 weeks after losing my job. But on the good side a friend of my offered me a job in the audio/visual field and some video shooting running second camera and assistant for the lead cameraman. I was also offered some constulting work for an internet web design company ran by one of my gardening friends on Garden Web as well. So if you need any web work or need a new host let me know...

Also I just harvest a lot batch of peppers today and have about 15 more that will be ready to harvest. Unfortunally I do not know what they are. All the tags were lost when I moved the pepper to the side yard to fend for themselves after they did not produce any peppers this year. I figured I would keep the survivors and start some news ones next year. It looks like most of them survived and even produced. If you know what kinds they are let me know.

Thanks guys.

Pride of Barbados

Caesalpinia pulcherrima 'Pride of Barbados'

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Japanese Tea Gardens In San Antonio

Last weekend my wife and I spent the weekend in San Antonio, TX for her 5 year reunion at Trinity University. Between alumni events, my wife and I were able to sneak away and spend a few hours at the Japanese Tea Garden right across the highway from the university.

Currently, the gardens are being renovated, and you can see how hard they are working at keeping and making this a wonderful place to visit. Of course we chose a time of year when most of the flowers were
 already spent but it was still very beautiful and I will planning to visit next spring, if we have the time. My favorite part of the garden is all the hardscaping and the way the park is sunken into an hold rock quarry.

History: A complete history can be found at Japanes Tea Garden History.

In 1881 the San Antonio Water Works Company, through its president, George W. Brackenridge, donated 199 acres to the City of San Antonio to be used as public park. In 1901 the park was officially opened and today still holds the name of Brackenridge park. At this time their was a working operating rock quarry west of the park on land owned by the City of San Antonio. The stone cutters had been leasing this land since the mid 1800s. Then in 1908 Quarry company closed down the site after it needed to bring in rail lines to expand the project. Instead they purchased a new site. 

In 1915, another 11 acres were donated, the land immediately adjacent to the abandoned quarry for a city park.  City Parks Commissioner, Ray Lambert came up with the idea of a lily pond would later became the Japanese Tea Garden.  From July 1917 and May 1918, the City used prison labor to turn the quarry into complex that had walkways, stone arches bridges, an island, a Japanese pagoda. Local residents donated bulbs, exotic plants were donated by local nurseries, and the roof used palm leaves from the palm trees in the city parks. Ray Lambert only spent 7,000 to create his ideas 


Over the years, the park made changes to the design and improvements were made. Currently this is what the park looks like as of October 10th, 2008.



 

Another Busy Weekend

This weekend was a busy one. I created and finished up on my new Iris bed. I am not sure I like it and I think I will re do the bed next weekend. I made two trips to the dump for more mulch, finished laying mulch down in the new backyard garden, gave my new lawn mower a tune up, and rebuilt the broken door casing.

Here are some new pictures of the new flower bed in the back. Its not done yet and the plants will not be planted until I decide that I really like the layout. I think I may just leave them potted up and put them in garage for the winter and plant them next April.

The larger plants in the front are milkweed, candle stick, and cigar plant. These will be moved out to another spot but right now they are still small and will not block the view of the other plants.

The main layout will be Lantana, Turks Cap, Red Saliva, Lady in Pink Saliva, and Pine Apple Sage. I then will look for some sort of vine to climb the trellis that can take part shade and noon to 5 PM west sun. I will also be repotting all of the smaller pots.

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Went To the City Dump Today

Lately I have been renovating the  beds in  my yard  and creating new ones. Once I complete those bed, I mulch the bed with hardwood mulch. Some cities now have a recycling of hardwood program. Some cities have better programs and some have none. If you are looking for free mulch and other garden products, check out your local city programs.

As you can see the City of Garland has a large pile of mulch. a few months ago this pile was a lot larger. There are several other areas with smaller piles. I am not sure what these piles are for but they are deep in organic matter but, they were set to side of the pit. Hopefully Garland will start a better program and start a compost program.