A Rose of Sharon by any other name

I may not be especially old fashioned, but I'll admit it - I am old.

Old enough to remember a time in the late 1950's, growing up right here in Austin, when farmers and ranchers and gardeners alike were all talking about the ongoing drought.  Since it simply would not rain, they wanted information on what plants people had that could reliably survive the heat of summer, withstand winter's freezes and add either some utility or beauty to their spaces without needing much in the way of watering.

Sound familiar?

This was long before anybody had snapped to the idea that using native plants was the ideal solution to our recurring problems of too much heat/too little rain.  Back in those days, the vast majority of the plants in widespread use for landscapers and gardeners in Central Texas were well adapted imports.  If it looked pretty anyplace else and didn't die outright?  Texan gardeners would give it a try.

My Dad's garden spaces were no different.  A full blooded Italian, he was especially happy gardening around his retirement home near Lake Travis.  He felt the hills west of Austin were strikingly similar to the foothills of the Abruzzi Appenines in Italy where his family originally came from.  He had a special place in his heart for one particular stalwart of Austin gardens because it was a plant his own mother had grown and loved.

Some refer to it as a Rose of Sharon, my Italian grandmother knew it as St. Joseph's Rod, my father called it Althea, botanists label it Hibiscus syriacus, and I call it....gorgeous.

As dedicated as I am to planting and growing natives to our area, I'm also a sentimentalist. Long ago when my family and I moved back to the Austin area and my father offered me two starts from his collection of beloved Althea bushes, I was overjoyed to welcome them into our plant scape.

Decades later the dozen or so althea growing in our beds are all the offspring of those two plants my father originally gave me.  One a light pinky-purple and the other nearly white, over the years both varieties have either self seeded or survived my transplantation efforts to appear in all our spaces.  I like to think my Dad would be proud of how well we've all done, plants and gardener alike.

Some Althea I've trimmed up into tree like form, others I've left to their more customary shrub shapes.  They are very forgiving.  But, central trunk or multiple trunks, trimmed away from the sidewalk or left to stretch up into the sun, white, light pink or purple, Althea are all beautiful to my eyes.

Bumblebees seem to appreciate them in their own enthusiastic way.

Whether you yourself are a hardy native or are a well adapted transplant to our Central Texas spaces, here's wishing you and yours a Happy Fourth of July.  Long may you thrive and bloom here, and may we all get the rain we need!