I knew I would find a use for these.....

The seed starter everyone has in their home.... I always knew that there had to be something that could be done with the empty Toilet Tissue tubes...... I finally saw something in a book I was looking at and tested it....loved how it worked. It worked perfectly as a seed starter and satisfied my personal need to use them for something of value. I just took my personal mixed potting soil and filled the tubes. I stood them up-right in a container that I collected at the salad bars. Plant several seeds in each tube....mist daily and cover with the clear top, creating a "miniature hot house". Once the seed germinates, remove cover and continue to mist. Take the entire tube and plant in the ground. The following will show you how I am growing some Egyptian Cotton or Gossypium Barbadense seeds that I gathered from a mature tree at the Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens.

I just loved the look of the leaf, heart shaped and shiny.

I put my little cotton tree in the ground after it had about 3-4 leaves. This plant can be grown as a bush or tree. I preferred to shape it into a tree, so therefore I removed all the lower leaves.

Look how big it has gotten as of today. Proudly standing about 5 feet tall. The interesting part about this little story, is after I succeeded with propagating some seeds, and I contacted the museum to get the official name of my little plant, I was told that the original tree, much to their grief is no longer at the gardens. No one exactly knows why it was removed. And I was questioned about time involved to grow mine.

A Little History Lesson on this plant....who would have guessed? I just thought it was a pretty and different looking plant.

Peruvian Pima Cotton – Gossypium Barbadense
Native South American Luxury Textiles of Peru & Inca Civilization

Peruvian Pima Cotton – Cotton of the Incas - Public Domain
Peruvian Pima cotton, gossypium barbadense, is a luxury cotton native to South America. Here is an overview and history of Peruvian Pima cotton from the Incas to today.
Gossypium barbadense, commonly known as Pima cotton, is today cultivated in many of the major cotton growing regions of the world. This luxury cotton, highly valued on the global market, is still harvested in Northern Peru where its origins can be found.
A History of Peruvian Pima Cotton
Gossypium barbadense was given the name “Pima” cotton after the Pima Indians who first harvested the cotton in the United States. An experimental farm for the cultivation of this species of cotton was developed in the early 1900s by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Sacaton, Arizona.
While the common name of the plant originated in North America, its historical origins are distinctly South American. Cotton fragments have been found in Peru dating as far back as 3100 B.C. Archeologists discovered cotton samples of this era in the Huaca Prieta excavation, a site located in today’s cotton growing region of Peru.