I am trying to find seeds on my El Capitolio, but when the blooms fall off, they are as the pictue shows, leaving nothing on the plant but a stem piece. Is it possible that they are not being pollinated, or am I looking at the plant when I should be looking at the fallen bloom. This plant is so beautiful that I want to start one for a pot. (also, I am becoming addicted to seed gathering). Any help to a newbie is greatly appreciated.
I've never seen seeds form on any of my tropical Hibiscus (El Capitolio included), so you're probably better off trying cuttings if you want another one.
Thank you so much. I have been driving myself crazy tooking for these seeds. Do I root in water or soil? Any help would be appreciated.
I should add that if it does form seeds, they wouldn't be there right away when the flower falls off, they would take a little time to form, but my guess still would be that you won't get any. I'll let someone else advise you on rooting--I've only successfully rooted one cutting out of many, many, many attempts and it wasn't a hibiscus!
Thanks for all your help! I really do appreciate all of the time you saved me. I keep running outside to gather the fallen blooms. The bloom heads seperate easily from the stem, leaving what looks like a seed inside. I was hoping that was a seed pod, but can't find anything in any of the threads that points me in that direction. They all mention that a papery seed pod is left on the plant where the bloom was and this is not the case with my hibiscus.
Thanks again.
Hi Sheila, I have never seen a seed pod form on this particular hibiscus.
However, it does start very easily from cuttings. I would reccomend
using 6 to 8 inch tip cuttings in soil, remove the bottom half of the leaves
from the stem before planting and keep the medium moist but not wet.
It would not hurt to mist them and keep them out of strong sun for a few
weeks untill they start to show some new growth.
I have used this plant as a pollen donor with another hibiscus that does
set seedpods and now have 14 seedlings that I will have to wait awhile
to see what kind of new flowers I will get. Right now they are only about
3 or 4 inches tall.
Heres a pic of the seed pod parent's flower...
Thank you Dave. I took some cuttings about 1/2 hour ago, but I put them in water. I'll take them out and pot them. I guess I'm done running around the yard looking for their seeds.
You will have to send me pictures of the flowers from the seedlings. I would be very interested in seeing those. The donor flower is beautiful. Do only hardy hib set seed pods?
By the way are you going to the Bushnell Round up?
Im sorry I wasnt very clear in my last post.
The pollen parent (male) is El Capitolio.
The seed pod parent (female) is the yellow bloom.
They are both tropical hibiscus. Some plants set seed
easier than others while some are better as pollen donors.
From what I have seen, hardy hibiscus sets seed much easier
than the tropical kind. I have had more luck with cuttings as
opposed to seeds with the tropicals.
I havent been to any roundups yet, but they sound kinda fun.
My fault, I know so little about gardening period, yet alone hibiscus, that I didn't even know the yellow bloom was a tropical. I thought it looked like a hardy that shows you how little I know. I have so much to learn, but am having such a wonderful time. I am especially excited about gathering seeds and sowing them over the winter. I am thinking about buying a hardy just to gather seeds, how addicted is that!!! My biggest problem is where I am going to put all of the seed trays!!!
I like the excuse that I am a newbie, I am going to be using that one for years.
I still would be very interested in seeing pictures of the flowers though.
Thanks for your help and any and all advice on anything to do with gardening is appreciated. :0)
Hope to see you at the Bushnell RU. I was at my first round up at Ariels in July. It was great, so many nice, knowledgable people with great plants to share with everyone. It was a lot of fun.
Sheila
