My garden had 3 volunteers from gorilla glue seed from last years crop. They came up after the first December rains. We had a long cold wet winter with many frosts. All my other garden plants died in the early frosts. I let these guys just grow with the other weeds in the garden, mostly malva and lambs quarters. At one point early on we had 12 days of Santa Anna winds. Dry intense winds here in our little north/south valley. I just left them to the weather to learn from naturally grown plants that chose their season here in SoCal. They took the winds fairly well. They hated freezing cold weather and even a little snow, but they always perked up a few days later. In mid February, growth picked up and the male started to flower so I cut the male as the only other plant (the now big one) I knew of then was showing sign of female flowering. After I cut most of the winter weeds, I found a smaller plant in a dry area. Well anyway, this is the big female now. It began to flower in early March. After a week or so of flowering, it grew whorled leaves on the tips and stopped growing for over a month.
The female flowers are all gone and the vegetative growth has resumed with vigor. I took this pic this morning May 2nd. The plant grew about a foot over the last week and I am excited about the prospect of a plant this already over 6 feet tall in early May with nearly 3 months vegetative growth remaining in this season before flowering. It also broke a big lower branch this morning as well, letting me know that this will become a big issue this year. The plants that grew there last year were very large. The tallest was over 12’. I am pretty excited to see how big this naturally grown plant will be come harvest time in September. In both pics the old foliage is darker than the new. If you look closely, you can see the whorled leaves better in the first pic.