Cotton pickin' Bloom Day
At Lake Austin Spa on Wednesday, my guide, head gardener Trisha Shirey, showed me an interesting plant she’s growing in the vegetable garden—cotton! Related to the hibiscus, she explained, its flower opens white and soon fades to a soft pink.
When the flowers drop, seedpods called bolls begin to ripen. I think they are quite attractive, as are the wine-red stems of the leaves.
The seeds are ripe when the boll turns brown and splits open to reveal the cotton fluff inside. That natural fiber is what our comfy clothes are made of, folks!
Trisha clipped a boll for me to take home. If I want, I can plant the seeds inside and try for my own cotton plant next spring.
And that’s the story of my cotton-pickin’ Bloom Day. To see what’s blooming in other gardens around the world, visit May Dreams Gardens today.
Join me tomorrow in celebrating October’s best foliage on the day after Bloom Day. If you have some interesting foliage pics to share, please post them tomorrow and leave a link in my Foliage Follow-Up post on Saturday morning.
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Wow that is so neat that she is growing cotton! Does she do anything with the cotton balls? Will you plant the seeds?
Cotton is a fun plant in the garden. Normally, up north here it doesn’t get hot enough for us to actually get cotton from the plants, but this year it was! This is peak season for fall foliage color around here so I’m going to try to join in for foliage follow up after a visit to my brother’s woods.
I like the plant and flower, too. The hibiscus family is enormous! You do know that I am going to be singing that Cotton Picking song all day! gail
I hear the tune. I have seen fields of those plants growing. Interesting having it in a garden. It would be great to have them in a school garden so the children could see where cotton comes from.
That is an interesting plants… I’d never seen the blooms before! L
Until the last photo with the cotton bolls, I could’ve sworn the plant was exactly like the ornamental hibiscus in my garden. I had no idea how similar the plants are – always thought of cotton as some exotic plant unlike anything that would grow here in CT. Let us know if you plant the seeds and how it works out!
What time of year do you plant? Is there a source for the seeds other than stopping on the roadside and swiping a few?
We passed so many fields of cotton on our way out this summer and on our way back. I wanted to stop and take a look but you know how it is when you are on the road! Very pretty pink flower. How clever of Trisha.
Never thought about cotton being grown anywhere other than the cotton fields!
That was great! I have been thinking about cotton and reading a bit about it lately as the bicentennial of the Civil War approaches, since cotton was THE crop for the South but also in demand for Northern and British mills. Interesting to think of it as a plant with ornamental potential.
I never knew it was such a pretty flower.
I had no idea cotton had such a pretty flower. I have seen fields of it but not in flower. Thanks for the tour.
Pam, many years ago (MANY!) when the kids were young, I realized they had no idea where cotton came from. I think they thought it just appeared on hangers at the mall! So…I decided to grow cotton in a flower bed to let them see where it really came from. I had beautiful flower bed cotton! 🙂
I do believe it is actually illegal to grow cotton in your personal gardens because of the boll weevil pests. I wanted to grow it when I first moved here and had heard that one needed to check with local authorities and they in fact relayed this to me. Pamie G.
Trisha brought some of her cotton to CTG last taping. I simply want to try this! Can’t wait to try. Happy Bloom Day!
Gossipium hirsutum…first Latin name I ever learned. I wanted to know what I had been picking at my grandfather’s farm all my childhood. I could say I’m feeling nostalgic, but I’m not. It was way too hard of a job for a kid. Still, the blooms are pretty. Cotton starts off VERY slowly until about the 6th leaf, then takes off like a skyrocket if it gets full sun and endless heat…not a problem in Austin. 🙂 See you tomorrow at Foliage Follow-up.
David/ Tropical Texana/
Lovely post Pam! I had no idea such a pretty flower came before the fluffy fibers!
I grew cotton for the first time this year. I soaked the seeds in a moist paper towel overnight. Then I stuck 3 seeds directly in the soil. I planted in June in my Zone 7b/8a garden. I thought that might be a little bit late, but it worked out just fine (it produced cotton seeds in September and is still producing in October). I do know the soil needs to be warm before seeds will germinate, so it’s not something you’d plant in early spring. The seeds germinated in a week’s time! I did a post called “In High Cotton” to chronicle my experiment 🙂 I’ve saved the seeds and plan to put it in my garden next year, too. I’ve heard some statistic that it used to take something like 95 hours to make a shirt (from cotton plant to finished shirt) by the time they spin the cotton and weave it and then sew the shirt. Interesting 🙂 Give it a try; it’s a fun plant to grow!
Love the cotton flower and that bracelet. Shining in the sunshine, all.
Wow – that cotton is so cool. In your first photos of the plant I can certainly see the Hibiscus resemblance. Learned something new today! 🙂
I had no idea that cotton was such a pretty plant! When I saw the first photo, I thought it might be a hibiscus bud. Very interesting, Pam.
Natural Gardener sometimes sells the seeds for cotton. I found seeds at the March Herb Festival in Roundtop. The Pioneer Unit Herb Society usually sells many heirloom type seeds at the festival. I planted a tan and a green cotton. The cotton actually is colored, so no dye is needed for garments.
I did have to stake the plants (with tomato cages) after 12.5 inches of rain with Hermine. They are almost four feet tall and covered with bolls and not a weevil in sight. Organic cotton growers don’t spray with toxic chemicals for boll weevil and if you have fire ants they do a pretty good job of controlling the weevil. (As well as ticks and a few other nasty pests.)
Anyone who wants seeds can send me a SASE and I will send cotton seeds. I am going to use the cotton bolls for fall decorations. I planted them in April and this is the best the plants have ever done. I have planted later but have not had a good crop before frost. Send SASE to Trisha Shirey 1705 S. Quinlan Park RD. Austin, TX 78732
Cotton is a beautiful plant, but like Pamela Graham, I’ve heard that it is illegal to grow it ornamentally, depending on where you live. Check out the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Program for more info: http://www.txbollweevil.org/default.html Of course, this info is geared toward commercial growers, but surely there’s an answer for gardeners out there somewhere…
I would love to grow cotton but it would be nice to have an answer on this from a good source. I would really hate to introduce a boll weevil to the number one cash crop in Texas. I have a feeling that I would not be very popular. There has to be a source somewhere that can help us out on this? Anyone?
FYI:
I did get an answer back —
if you have ever seen Kudzu, we know why we have laws like this, invasive or pests, can destroy someone’s farm.
It is illegal to grow noncommercial cotton in Texas without a permit. You would need to contact the Texas Department of Agriculture for more information. Their website is http://www.agr.state.tx.us. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Teresa Eliason
Communications Director
Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, Inc.