My New Ilima Plant

One of the ladies who Art brings (Meals on Wheels) meals to sewed him an ilima lei recently.

I saw an ilima plant at Home Depot and got the hankering to grow one.

This is what I found on Wikipedia:

Sida fallax, known as ʻilima in Hawaiian, is a species of herbaceous flowering plant in the Hibiscus family, Malvaceae, that occurs on most of the Pacific Islands. The flowers are small, 0.75–1 in (1.9–2.5 cm) in diameter, have five petals, and are a golden yellow in color. Plants may be erect or prostrate and are found in drier areas in sandy soils, often near the ocean. ʻIlima is the symbol of Laloimehani and is the flower for the island of Oʻahu.

There were a couple of different varieties of the ilima but I liked this one because of the soft, velvety heart shaped leaves.  It also had lots of buds on them.  Ilima are supposed to be wind, sun and salt tolerant.  I wonder if it will survive my brown thumb.

"You do realize," said my realist, bubble bursting husband, "It takes 500 of those flowers to make one strand of ilima lei."

I told him that by the time my granddaughter visits again I'll have enough to make her a little floral bracelet ... if I'm lucky.