Hibiscus: Blooms for 8-22-07, 1 by AmandaTaylor7

AmandaTaylor7 wrote:
Brugie - I wish we had 71 degree temps! GEEZ! I'm jealous!!

Karen - I love the Gator Pride pic, even though it's not fully open! I think that's what I love about it!! It's like ... watching a little baby starting to open her eyes in the morning, just before she looks up at you and smiles to know you're there. :) I know, I'm weird. Can you tell I'm a mom? ;) (Same comment about Voodoo Magic)

Cat - I love your 5th Dimension! I wish my Peach double would start blooming again. Grrr ... But i like your Hawaiian Salmon! It kinda has a Schizo flare to it, don't you think? Pretty, pretty!!

digigirl - I'm trying to root a Schizo cutting right now, so if it takes, I'll mail it to you! I'll let you know if/when it does take and then you can send me your mailing addy. You're so close to me so it's not a big deal. The Schizo is breathtaking. The flowers are about 3-4 inches in diameter when they are fully stretched out because the leaves curl backwards completely to form a ball with the stamile (?) hanging down long and curling back a tad at the tip. (See the attached pic of one of my Schizo blooms fully open from another day.)

I'm new to growing Schizo so I can't tell you much about them except from my own experience this far. My plants arrived at about 2-3 ft. tall each and these tend to grow limbs off of one main erect stem so a lot of people will train them to grow like trees. I've been told they can grow 10-12 feet tall, but mine are both only at about 3 1/2 feet tall now so ... we'll see. In these HOT days we've been having, I've still been getting about 3-5 blooms per day on each plant, and there aren't many limbs on mine because I've been trying to train them to grow like trees, also (not sure if I'll stick with that). They have a natural leaning habit so that the blooms will hang off of the plant like lanterns (another nickname for them is Japanese Lanterns), so I've staked mine in the ground to provide some support to the main branch. This seemed to REALLY help with the growth of the plant and the amount of daily blooms. I planted mine in this yucky clay soil with a little bit of regular plain Miracle Grow soil in with it. In this, I mixed in a little of this granular fertilizer that I bought from WalMart for about $5. It's in a pink bottle with a yellow lid, not especially for hibiscus, just for flowering shrubs. Then I covered the base in about 2-3 inches of mulch. Before staking it in the ground, the plant would frequently lean to the point where it would fall over after a few days. But not anymore. I do think it may like some shade as it's growing tendacies are putting a little more new growth in the shady area, but mine are only under a tad bit of shade for about an hour a day and are doing fine.

Here's the PF information on them: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/790/ (although from what I've read, the height information there is wrong and mine are already taller than 36 inches and aren't very old).

So would you like a cutting if I can get one to take root?

This message was edited Aug 23, 2007 12:27 PM

This message was edited Aug 23, 2007 12:30 PM