Friday Fabulous Flower - Rose Mallow

It's hard to argue with this herbaceous perennial in terms of flower size, fully open flowers of the rose mallow may be 7-8 inches in diameter. The flowers appear in mid-summer and are borne at the top of 3-4 foot tall stems. Colors range from white, through pinks to red.  Of course they exhibit the hallmarks of the mallow family.  The only problem is that mallows are a favorite food of Japanese beetles, so in years of a bad infestation, these big, beautiful flowers get chewed up pretty badly.  You can't get much of an easier plant to grow. So you just have to ask, "Why don't I have one of these?"  TPP assumes that the rose mallow is a cultivar of Hibiscus moshceutos, and not far off from the marsh mallow, better known for the confection named after it than as the plant itself.