In November 2021, I attended Des Plaines Garden Club’s Annual Holiday Luncheon where they also were celebrating their 90th anniversary. Since we garden club members always like to share ideas, the centerpiece committee outdid themselves. They had purchased some beautiful, silvery pink roses as the focal point of the floral designs for each table. Then, they looked around their November gardens and clipped whatever was still lovely to add to the bouquet centerpieces including lavender, statice, parsley, oats and other grasses, holly and what I thought was Japanese maple.
I was fortunate to be given one of the centerpieces and enjoyed it for weeks— discarding the participants of the lovely floral design as they faded. When it came time to bid adieu to the last of them, I was surprised to see that the “Japanese maples” had rooted, so I put them in pots and they are thriving.
To get more information about these plants for you, I reached out to the creators of these beautiful centerpieces. Being surprised is a big part of my gardening life, but I was really surprised to find out that I hadn’t planted maples at all! The cuttings were from a red leaf hibiscus/ African rose mallow (Hibiscus acetosella). If only I had used the app that I have on my phone, “PictureThis,” that I recommend very highly, I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself by letting it be known that I didn’t know a hibiscus from a maple!
This hibiscus is easy to grow and recommended for gardeners with brown thumbs. I plan to keep it in a south window until spring when it will migrate with some of my other houseplants to a semi-shady spot in my garden.
I was told that I can make a cutting in the fall and pot it up as a houseplant again until next spring. It will grow to be about three to five feet tall and its vibrant red, pink or orange flowers attract nectar-seeking birds, butterflies and hummingbirds.
I can grow houseplants and so can you!
