I am planning on growing Thai Red Roselle this year for the first time. Southern Exposure claims it blooms by “mid summer” in Virginia. I am wondering if starting it at the beginning of March makes sense, or I shouldn’t trust the 90-100 days to mature estimate?@sharq I think you have posted the most about Roselle and would love to see your insights and pictures here, and I think you were going to make some crosses with it as well? Would also love to hear from anyone growing it further North as an annual - what’s worked and when did they flower?
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My crosses didn’t happen. I had very little overlap in blooms with my roselles and cranberry hibisicus since it got cold early. All the cranberry seeds pods got torched by the cold before they were ready anyways.
I am skeptical of mid-summer (July?), afaik there is no daylight neutral roselle out there. The earliest bloom I had was August 21st, which is bang on 13 hours give or take a minute. I expect bud formation started at 13h 30mins almost exactly (which is roughly August 1st). Find out roughly when those day lengths are for you. Roselle acts like an annual, it will flower at nearly any size as long as the day length is right. In spring, I have seen 1 month old volunteers produce pods (I had one sprout in September and bloom in November). 90-100 days should be fine, you are just trying to size the plant up for a good harvest.
Buds are ready for harvest in about a week from bloom, 2 weeks is usually seed pod fully sized and full maturation is about 4 to 5 weeks. Since your are eatting petals, maturation only matters for seed saving. I reccomend picking around 2 weeks or when you have enough pods to do something with. They start contracting powdery mildew at consistent night time temps below 45. It takes about a week for it to spread to the pods. Pick before then.
I am unfamiliar with Southern Exposure’s roselle, however the other two early varieties I know about have the same growth habit. They tend to fall over and grow sprawly. I suggest stacking or giving a pretty wide area. The stalks will get to at least an inch thick, so a pretty heafty stake is needed. Even if it is not sprawly, they have shallow roots, so a stake is always beneficial.
I think thats a pretty good run down of what I know. Reds stain your fingers, whites don’t break down as well for jelly. The leaves are edible, my chickens love them more than there treats. I am sure deer would too. I started mine in late April, but if I had space I would have tried for spring flowers by starting in greenhouse in November. Here are some pictures of my early variety to show you an idea of how they grow. First picture was in June before the rainy season started. Second one was beginning of September. These are my whites, which were my early variety.
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Wow, thank you so much for all the detailed information!!! I’m excited to try this year.
I was going to get the early ones you recommended from Cody farms but I needed to order from Southern exchange so was being economical.
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I was just recommending because they were supposed to be early. If you found an early variety else where, then it should be fine. The guy I buy my stuff from loves Cody Farms, but I have personally never bought from him.
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Internet says I have 13.5 hours of daylight end of first week of August and 13 by the very end of August. Southern Exposure is 2 hours south of me, but if you don’t bloom until August then clearly there is some exaggerating going on with the description!
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I’ve grown the Thai roselle from SE a few different times. I’m only going by memory, but I don’t think I ever saw any significant blooming until mid to late August at the earliest and it could have been later. I start them inside and plant them out. You only need 4 weeks to get them up to 6-8 inches inside and getting them any bigger doesn’t seem to help in any way - they just take longer to settle in and start growing again.
They are fun to grow and pretty easily get to 6+ feet by the end of the season and can be nearly as wide as tall. I haven’t cooked with the leaves, but I’ve had them raw chopped up in salads fairly often. They have a sourness like sorel which is really nice in a salad. The Bangladeshi gardeners in my community garden refer to it as sour leaf and I give them extra seedlings when I have them.
If you enjoy growing for food banks, the leaves will probably be a big hit if they serve some of the south east Asian populations. The leaves don’t seem to be available in local Asian markets, so it is a rare chance for some people to get a taste from home. I grew a few just outside the fence at our community garden (not really allowed) and they regularly had the leaves cut off and taken. Since they were outside the fence they were fair game, so I was fine with it.
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I am in SC and we planted early and got a solid harvest right before it froze. Yield was excellent. Red roselle. We didn’t get mature seeds though, the season just isn’t long enough here.
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My experience here in z7a southern KY - about 70 mi NW of Nashville - was similar to that of @zendog
I’ve grown an unnamed Roselle variety gifted from cousinfloyd who was a previous growingfruit member, for several years. Grew Thai Red, from Baker Creek, the past 2 years. Started indoors from seed in late Feb. Seems like it initiated bloom a week or two earlier than the previous selection I’d grown, but still… late Aug/early Sept., with bloom and calyx development continuing until frost. Got a good harvest, as you can usually harvest calyces 10-14 days after petal drop.
A couple of years back, I also grew a row of ‘Cranberry Hibiscus’, H.acetosella, a ‘cousin’ of Roselle… but they were MONSTERS - vigorous purple-leaved plants that grew to 10 ft tall - and would have been that wide if I’d not planted them at 2-3 ft spacings - before they collapsed. Leaves had that same - if not more pronounced - tang that is present in Roselle leaves. It never bloomed here… I guess it requires a much longer season than I have.
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Yup, I grew that one a couple years back along side the Roselle. Beautiful foliage, but they got pretty huge - never flowered. Several of the side branches cracked at the trunk a fell, so they definitely need staking. I’ve had a few big side branches do that on the Roselle, but it is much rarer.
I’ll have to check later but I believe I grew the Thai red last year. The plants struggled in an unusually cool and wet spring and only reached about 4 ft tall. They bloomed in August and continued until a hard frost, not long enough to mature seeds though. The calyxes made an alright jelly but are better as a beverage/tea. I will be growing again this year.
The deer love them.
@Eme What are you planning to do with them?
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That early producing Thai strain from Southern Exposure works great in KY and we got tons of calyxes months before it frosted. We started them in April or May.
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Doesn’t bloom until under roughly 11.5 hours. We didn’t start getting good blooms till December 1st. I enjoy the leaves more on cranberry hibiscus, they make a good tea. Cranberry hibisicus tends to break fairly regularly and grow more vigorous. Calyxs are hard and spikey though, can’t be used like roselle’s. They are frost hardy but die in the upper 20s. Mine are all currently sticks, but heres the blooms on December 1st.
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Thanks for all the anecdotes everyone! I’m excited to grow this. No idea what I’ll do with them- probably try them anyway I can eating the greens, making tea trying to make jelly if I have enough and looking for other ideas.
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I munch on the leaves while I’m puttering around in the garden. My kids love Roselle tea, so for the past couple of years, I’ve just peeled the calyces off the seedpod and dehydrated them for that purpose. I made a big batch of jam several years back… peeled off the calyces and cooked them down, then cooked down the pods for the pectin in them and added that back in… following instructions on a YouTube video.
I’ll echo @Josh6b’s experience with deer - I got almost no fruit last year, as the deer kept all leaves browsed off from the time the plants got to be about 2 ft tall.
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Great! Thanks for the ideas.
Has anyone grown in containers? That’s my plan as I don’t have an in ground full spot for them.
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I’ve seen YouTube videos of folks growing 2 plants in a 4-ft galvanized livestock water tank, repurposed as a ‘raised bed’.
Definitely try candying the calyxes. They are delicious. We made a ton last year
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Intriguing! How did you do that?
Those growing roselle in containers- what size? Can I get away with 5-7g and get it to flower or does it need 10? Up potting to final container later this week or next.
5/7g is plenty. They don’t have large root systems. You will want to stake them though, otherwise high winds will knock them over.