Hibiscus moscheutos Red Wine - Swamp Rose Mallow

Hibiscus moscheutos 'Red Wine' is a variety of rose mallow with giant flowers of a brilliant dark red hue, enhanced by dark purple, almost black, foliage! This exotic-looking plant offers contrasting colours and an extravagant flowering from July to September in cups of about 20 cm (7.9 in) with silky petals of a deep and vibrant red, discreetly illuminated by cream stamens. Short-lived, they constantly renew themselves as long as there is enough moisture in the soil. Its dark foliage is particularly ornamental with its strongly lobed shape and its green underside contrasting with its red-purple stems and veins. It is a hardy shrubby perennial down to -15 °C (5 °F) whose bushy clump of about 1 m (3 ft 4 in) in all directions disappears completely in winter to regrow from the stump each spring. Accustomed to warm marshes, it is a plant that loves full sun and rich, moist to wet soils. Use it to form temporary hedges with other marsh mallows, a highly coloured background at the edge of a pond, or plant them in several pots to punctuate the surroundings of a terrace.

Hibiscus moscheutos, also known as Hibiscus palustris, is a herbaceous plant with a woody base from the mallow family, related to hollyhocks and rose mallows. It is native to marshes in the southern United States, where it can reach a height of 2 m (6 ft 7 in). Horticulturists have taken this amazing botanical species and obtained many very interesting cultivars, showing larger flowers with varied colours and increased floribundity. 

The 'Red Wine' variety is a creation of Pépinière Fleurs du Sud and belongs to the Carousel range, which brings together hardy and floriferous rose mallow varieties with dark purple foliage that particularly enhances their huge single flowers. It forms a beautiful spreading clump that will quickly reach a height of 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) and a width of 1 m (3 ft 4 in) in one season. This cultivar stands out for its dark red flowers, which are both velvety and vibrant. They open into single flowers, about 20 cm (7.9 in) wide, with slightly crinkled petals. The flower shows a dark red column of cream stamens and scarlet pistils in its centre. They are short-lived but constantly renew themselves from July to September. The stems and veins are red-purple, reminiscent of the fiery colour of its flowers. The large leaves are divided into three narrow and pointed lobes with widely crenate margins, of a dark purple, almost black, colour, with a green underside, and are very ornamental throughout the growing season.

Rose mallow plants are spectacular and cannot leave anyone indifferent: some people dislike their huge flowers because they can be difficult to integrate into a natural setting, while others love them for the same reasons that make them suitable for a contemporary-style garden or an exotic scene carefully organised around a water feature or on a terrace. This superb plant may suffer in mountainous areas, even though it can withstand temperatures down to -15 °C (5 °F). All rose mallow varieties add another dimension to waterlogged flower beds or the edge of a pond, when combined with Gunnera, cannas, arum lily, Rodgersia Chocolate Wings, or Colocasia esculenta.