Completely new at these!

I have gotten some tropical hibiscus seeds from a very generous Dger. I know nothing about these other than I know that tropicals hibiscus are not true to the parent plant. Is it to late to start these? How do I start these? I don't have a green house, can these go dormant? He sent me about 25 seeds in 6 different packets. Each is listed both colors of the parent plants. I am really lost on this one! lol! HELP!!

Hibiscus are easy .. I start all of my seeds in plastic window boxes. I fill the window boxes with ProMix BX, a peat based potting medium (I quit using soil years ago .. way too heavy) and plant the seeds just under the ProMix. If they are fresh seeds then they should come up pretty quickly if not it may take a week or two. Once they have put on a set of true leaves I transplant into individual pots .. when the roots start coming out the bottom they go into bigger pots or in the ground.

Since yours are tropical, I'd wait until next spring to start unless you have a sunny warm place to winter over. The picture below is of some I planted last week. They all got put into their individual pots yesterday.

X

Oh Melanie I hope you get some real incredible flowers. I need to cross a few myself. I think it would be great fun getting new hibiscus.

So X, you do not cover your seed box but leave it open?

I leave it open, it stays in the greenhouse .. in fact, this time of year the greenhouse stays wide open 24/7 unless we are going to have a rain storm with a lot of wind. I use an old window screen on the door to keep the tree rats out and shade cloth on half of it. Actually shade cloth of a sorts on all of it since I don't clean the roof panes until the fall. I let them get dirty and stay that way and it filters the sun keeping things cooler.

Here's a peek inside .. I'm a messy greenhouse keeper ;-)

X

What kind of heater do you use?

It looks pretty neat to me! So it is glass?

It's polycarbonate. I use a forced fan oscillating space heater with a portable thermostat in winter. I keep it at dont freeze temps, around 40 degrees. I've been using this system for 2 years now and have never lost a plant. I might also add that I also have 25 2ltr soda bottles painted black with water in them. I set tender plants on top of them and they actually do quite a lot of growing in winter.

X

Thanks so much!
Kell I have never had these before, but they are from India so I thought that I would give them a try....maybe a little different, maybe!! LOL!!
X you have such a neat green house! My husband starts his tomatoes in a cold frame with rocks that he has painted black. I must remember to tell him about the water bottles, makes things so much neater.

I am always afraid to put a heater in my hoophouse because it drips water from the roof. Is yours safe if water drips on it?

It's encased in a plastic housing so what ever moisture drips on to it gets rolled off do somewhere safe. I think it would have to be a lot of water all at once to cause a short. I have a wireless themometer/hygrometer in there that sounds an alarm on the base station inside my house if the temperature gets too high/cold or wet (you can set it for what you like). So if a fire or something started in there I'd know it .. and the really nice thing is that the power to the greenhouse is plugged into one of my outside plugs on my house (cable is buried) so i can cut the juice in a second. That thing has save my plants too many times to count. Especially in the spring when I'm not in the habit of automatically opening up the greenhouse in the mornings. The portable thermostat can be switched over to for cooling as well as heating .. It's a very good system and I have no complaints.

X

Where did you get it X?

I got the fan at lowes. The thermostat here:

http://store.kkontrols.com/poth.html

And the wireless temp/hygrometer at Radio Shack:

http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=hygrometer%20thermometer&kw=hygrometer+thermometer

The whole kit&kaboodle was less than 100 dollars!

X