help! My rare scarlet rose hibiscus...10' tall, no greenhous

I need help. I have about 8 of these rare scarlet rose hibiscus(the entire plant is red, stem & all, & I don't have a greenhouse. Do I let it die back & will it come back up next spring? I've never raised a hibiscus before. About 3 are 10' tall & the rest are 3-4 ft. tall. Should I save the small ones & put them in the ground this spring? mark

you should most immediately bundle them all up and send them to your new found friend in this warmer climate!!!!

jackie

seriously.....do you know the names of them? do they have a glossy leaf or a flat one?

Does it look like this?
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2112/

They have a glossy leaf. I couldn't get the picture to come up to check to see how it compares....

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/30638/

I live in deep South Texas. It's a lot warmer here. I'l take care of them for you. ;->


Seriously, I, personally, would get a sharpshooter-type shovel and cut into the soil around it making a 10-12" cirlcle as deep as the shovel will go. I would lift the plant out of the ground, put it in a pot and store it somewhere warm for the winter.

But if you do this you will need to prune the top (vegetative) part back in proportion to the newly trimmed roots to keep the remaining stems and leaves from wilting.

The up side of it is that you can root the pruned stems and have more plants!!

Yep-saw the photos....thanks for the insight! mark

Well, I moved it inside & trimmed it back but I might have trimmed off too much of the root system...it's wilting. On the plus side, all the 90% snipped stems I'm rooting are doing great...so hopefully they will be ok till spring...then i can trade some out....i've still got 5 plants to experiment with...i thought about taking some of the smaller ones & taking them in, then the other two gigantic ones trim & get more stems for rooting, then covering up the bases with straw & plastic...any ideas helpful....thanks, mark, oh, if you are interested in miracles check out my journal....have a good one!

Question ...how long does it take to root hibiscus...a month? I put some in plain water & some i used rooting hormone....anyone done this before? thanks!

Sometimes it can take forever to root a hibiscus but then sometimes they take right off. You really never know. I have rooted 4 by using Rapid Rooters. It took them about a month but they have roots growing. I now have about 12 hardys in a glass wanting to get started for next year. I may put half in the Rapid Rooter and leave the rest in the water and see which produces roots first.

Thanks...i'll keep the fluid level correct and hope for the best! mark