There was an article published in the local newspaper recently discussing the beauty and resilience of the cotton plant. It was suggested that folks could add it to their gardens and enjoy gorgeous flowers that ultimately become the actual cotton boll. I was intrigued by the idea, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was wondering if cotton could be planted residentially. Well, kudos to the newspaper for printing a retraction and letting us know that it is illegal in the state of Florida to plant cotton because of the boll weevil.

I've heard about boll weevils all my life, but it got me wondering what exactly a boll weevil is and what the little critter actually looks like. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, it is an "insect...Anthonomus grandis, classified in the order Coleoptera, family Curculionidae, and all of its life stages". It is a beetle roughly a quarter inch in size that migrated from Mexico to the United States back in the 19th century. It all but totally destroyed the cotton crops. In the 1970s the Eradication Program was begun to regulate the growth of cotton. (Here in Florida the Southeastern Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation is responsible for cotton plant treatment.) So while the plant may be beautiful, we can only enjoy it from afar and it sounds like it's probably better that way.


On a goofier note, there is a Boll Weevil Monument located in Enterprise, Alabama. Why you ask? To honor the bug for forcing farmers to diversify their crops. Well, there's always another way to look at things, isn't there? Next thing you know someone may actually write a song about the critter. Oh wait - they did! Happy Florida Gardening.