The highly variable Abelmoschus manihot? Here is a link that might be useful: Abelmoschus manihot

Thanks everyone! I am glad we have a good guy :) Even my hubby got convinced. I hope this snake will eat more slugs and less earthworms in my garden. I've never seen a mouse here except gifts from our cat... Thanks again for helping me with this!

When I googled for the JOO and saw the variegated kind, I said WOW now that one is pretty too. After some of you mentioned how dark green the leaves are...I went and looked at all the other plants. I think it might have to do with the soil. The bed in the front is more sandy and does not hold water well. I have even improved it a lot this year and it is still not as good as I would like it to be. But THERE the leaves are a LOT lighter then in all the other places. So I do not know if it is just the soil? some are in full sun. Some are in only morning Sun and some are in afternoon sun and all but the one in the front have lush dark green leaves. Since I like it so much I transplanted one in EACH flowerbed today lol Karyn thank you again. You made growing this plant SO much more fun Lucy

Mine have some degree of shade for most of the day, but some sun. I think that's more important in southcentral Texas where I am. Its natural range in Texas is mostly east Texas where soil is deeper and rain more frequent than where I am. I water mine on a regular basis, because rain isn't that frequent here. And of course, that's more important in the severe drought here. It grows pretty slowly here. It probably will grow better there. Are you familiar with the Spicebush Swallowtail and its caterpillars? The caterpillars are adorable! One problem I had was there were occasionally too many of them. I started with 2 little trees, 2 or 3 gallon size (I forget which)from a native nursery. Then once the butterflies found them, I realized that since there's no other host plants growing wild locally (and I've never heard of anyone around here who grows it other than me), the mama butterflies would just keep laying eggs on my spicebush plants. So I bought a third one, since the foliage would occasionally be about gone on the first two. But...I've never regretted having them. Now if only it were sold in regular nurseries somewhere in the area so the mama butterflies could go lay some of those eggs elsewhere!