Pros and Cons of Roselle Hibiscus Gardening

This was my first year growing Roselle hibiscus. I was very happy to have bushy, big plants that would give me lots of tea to drink. But there are problems with this plant.

Growing Roselle was an experiment. I didn’t know much about it, but the tea is good for the heart, blood pressure and other things. It is grown for the red pods, called calyces that form after flowering. They are peeled, and the red petals are used for tea. The tea is delicious and healthy. The center of the pod is where the seeds form. Where I live, the bush is very easy to grow. I had no idea how much Roselle would love my yard. It took over.

Pros

Roselle is one of the easiest things I have ever grown. Plant seeds, or simply cut a small branch from an existing plant and stick it into the ground. It will grow! The plants are beautiful, with big dark green leaves. The flowers don’t last long, but new ones bloom every day – in the Fall. Then it’s time for saving the calyces to have tea in the months to come. I simply peel and freeze mine – if I can pick them before the ants come.

Cons

The beautiful bushes are not very strong. Strong wind catches the leaves and the whole bush will split down to the ground. Or, branches will break off. I lost one of my biggest bushes over the summer during a storm. Then Hurricane Helene damaged the others.

Roselle shrubs are huge. In a year they grew taller than me. They took over, blocked sun to parts of the gardens, and made navigating my yard more difficult. I didn’t know, and now I do.

These problems are manageable, and it’s all part of gardening. What I really don’t like about the Roselle is the ants. Once the red calyces began forming, ants were all over them. Maybe I have an excessive amount of ants in my yard, or maybe this is normal, I don’t know. No one warned me of this.

Also, inside each calyx are mealybugs – little white things. It just wasn’t worth the trouble to save these pods.

I have rinsed, set outside in the sun, rinsed again. The ants were everywhere. It was so bad, in this last batch of roselle I picked, that I gave up and threw them into the woods. It is possible the mealybugs cause the ants to come. I know ants show up when aphids appear too.

I did get an early set of pods, which had many fewer ants. I managed to clean and freeze those without much problem.

Another thing that is annoying is the flowers that drop become mushy and stick to my shoes. They make a mess. I’m certainly not a neat freak, but it feels like dog poop stuck to my crocs.

If I had lots of land, I would grow Roselle in a big area away from the house. They could expand and do their thing without getting in the way. Dropped flowers would be wiped from my shoes before I got back to the house. But this is not the situation I have.

One Roselle Hibiscus plant is enough for me. I’m going to cut them all down except one. Many broke and fell due to Hurricane Helene, so I’m already in the process of removing them. It is possible they will die over the winter anyway.

Solution

It is possible that my yard is not yet balanced with beneficial bugs to clean up this mess. I rarely see ladybugs. Even though I’ve had aphids on a number of plants, the ladybugs don’t stick around.

I read somewhere that it might take a few years to bring the beneficials to a garden, so I’m hopeful things will improve over time.

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