Matt brought two seedlings home from a friend at the farmers market in the spring. We are well north of the cotton belt, but of course growing zones and geography do not stop the inquiring mind.
The seedlings waited in static perfection under the grow lights, forever. We planted them, and they went out of sight, out of mind, dwarfed by peppers and eggplants. Then one day a flower peaked out, and we were entranced. I did not get any pictures of the pink ones, probably because I was chasing the woodchuck with a pitchfork. Oh well.
I would have loved to see the pods split and the cotton poof out, but our season is apparently too short, even when it's long. So oh well, again.
Weeks after peppers reached their knee-high potential and eggplants slumped under weighty fruit production, the cotton stood up tall, with straight strong stems. It was purple and cream and green, and sort of built like a praying mantis, with slim angles and soldered joints.
6 comments:
My blog partner (Other Ellen on another blog) grew black cotton on her NYC terrace two years ago and it was gorgeous. The leaves are black, not the cotton. She actually got a few poufy balls...the season in the city is definitely longer than in NE PA.
Lovely Cotton bloom. I have never seen one before. ;>)
Black cotton! Sounds very cool. I'll see if I can find seeds...
I DOES look like a praying mantis! Beautiful pics, Zoe. Did they produce seeds to save for next year? Just for the flowers' sake?
Wish I had taken photos of the field of ready-to harvest brown sticks with fluffy large cotton balls attached that I saw in Mississippi last week. I'd never seen them before. Thanks for showing us the flowers.
That's a cotton flower? It's beautiful!
Post a Comment