Native Plants
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Sunday - June 12, 2011
From: San Antonio, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Herbs/Forbs
Title: Standing cypress turning brown in San Antonio
Answered by: Barbara Medford
QUESTION:
Last year I bought and planted a standing cypress. This year several plants came up. The tallest one was about 1 foot tall. After blooming the plant began to turn brown and die. My question: Is this normal. I know other wildflowers have a limited time of growing and then die to be reborn next spring.ANSWER:
If you will follow this plant link to our page on Ipomopsis rubra (Standing cypress), you will learn that it is a biennial, which means it is behaving absolutely normally. You get a plant started one Spring, the next year it can bloom from May to July, it reseeds itself, and it dies. Yours may have bloomed earlier or failed to bloom longer because of the unusually high temperatures we have been experiencing in Central Texas. They are worth replanting every year because of those gorgeous red blooms and the fact that they attract hummingbirds.
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