A crazy week in Southern California...

Tigerama.

Veronika Todd. My first bloom. Granted, not a great one, but every other bloom I've had has fallen off :-( Probably time to bug-spray again.

Voodoo Queen.

Yoda. Another first bloom I've been anxiously awaiting.

Young at Heart.

What I DO know is that this is NOT Pride of Acadiana. Know it's Cajun, but don't know which one. Feel free to jump in with the name ;-)

I'm going to give up. This is the third plant that hasn't been PoA :-( It's probably God saying "karen, you've got WAY too many plants already", lol ;-)

Last one for me tonight is this unknown hardy. Let me know what it is. It's just growing on the side of my rental house, but I think it's really stunning.

Have a beautiful evening!!

karen

Great blooms Karen! Sorry to hear about your mom, I hope she's feeling better!

Wow, Karen! That was a scary week! Not at all the fun trip you anticipated! Give your mom a hug from me and tell her I'm thinking about her and sending her lots of warm, no-stress, get-well thoughts.

Have you ever gotten any idea what was wrong with her? It would be even scarier not to have any idea what caused her to lose consciousness like that.

Isn't it interesting how life always has its own ideas of what we are going to be doing next?

A big hug to both you and your mom,
Cindy

Karen well at least it wasn't at Rubio's instead of El Pollo Loco! LOL

Nice flower pics.Sure not like years back when there was only 5 choices in Ca. for Hib colors.
Kyle :-)

Your Hibiscus blooms are absolutely spectacular!! My favorite is Antique Treasure.
Did you purchase all these beauties at CA nurseries?

Thanks so much for everyone's well wishes towards my mom!

LOL, Kyle! Ya know, she loves El Pollo Loco, now she is going to be afraid to go back there ;-)

Snug, of all my 200+ hibiscus, I think only one has come from a local nursery in California, lol. I got into tropical hibiscus because my mom had purchased a "Hotbiscus" from Armstrong Gardens when she moved into a new house. When we did our back yard, I knew I had to have one, so I went to Armstrong too, but they didn't have any. Since I'm not real good at taking "no" for an answer, I researched them online and found the wonderful Hidden Valley Hibiscus (www.hiddenvalleyhibiscus.com). My very first order was through their online store then I was hooked! The vast majority of my hibiscus have come from either HVH, www.hibiscusplace.com and www.hypnoticblooms.com. All three are terrific sources for the tropical varieties. Also some of mine have come from www.exotichibiscus.com.

Antique Treasure came from a vendor I wouldn't recommend, and I'm happy it's still alive :-) It was a horrible little sickly thing when I got it, then I chopped it back and had to wait almost a year for a bloom. It's doing great now though :-) Thanks for the nice compliment!

karen

Wow, Karen!! Those are fabulous!! My fav. is American Maid ... I NEED ONE!!

Karen:
Thanks for sharing, I have 6 plants, and well on my way to 200! Thanks for the link. Do you happen to know what type of bug would be cutting off the blooms just before they open? I have 2 plants that haven't given me any flowers, the buds are all in the dirt!? What type of spray do you use? Do you give them anything special in the soil? I would love to start collecting them. Is it possible to get starts from soaking the branches? SOOOO many questions, TOOOOO little time! Thanks for your help.
Lisa

Lisa -

This would most likely be thrips, although pictures may be needed. If you prefer something natural/"green" to treat your plants with, I don't think I can help you. But when I get thrips on my hibiscus (which happens 2-3 times a year for me) I just douse them with the water soluable Ortho Bug-B-Gon in the evening when the sun is going down (so not to burn up the plant). I think you are suppose to repeat this 7 days later (?) but you should see immediate results with blooms surviving within 3-7 days after your first treatment. At least that's the way it works for me.

I plant mine with granular fertilizer (Osmocote is what I use). Generally, it is recommended that whatever fertilizer you use on your hibiscus has a very low middle number of the 3. That's why I use the Osmocote ... it already does. And you can repeat that when neccessary by working it into the top few inches of your soil around your plants (maybe 1-3 times a year?). Although I've see nawesome results with just once a year. And I can't recommend a good water-soluable fertilizer for them to spray once a week because I'm still looking for one. Several of the experts on here recommend that as well.

You can get newbies from soaking the cuttings ... I was finally successful with this last week! YAY!! I just took some small cuttings and placed them in water for 2-3 weeks. I changed out the water when it would get yucky-looking, but didn't mess with them daily or anything. Then after I'd seen that some of the leaves were retaining their greenness and there were little whits "nubs" on the ends of my cuttings, I placed these in some MG soil in little pots and began watering them and taking care of them that way. It has worked thus far ... although not on anything exotic yet (haven't tried that). Will try that next!

Hope this helps ... although I bow to any information that Karen, Robert and these other experts on here would give.

If you're in a windy area or if the plants are somewhere that someone/something could be brushing against them you can sometimes lose buds that way too (I lose them from time to time because of wind or my dog bumping into the plants). If you're losing most/all the blooms off of any given plant though it's probably more likely to be thrips, the wind/dog only knock off some of mine.

Karen,
They are all beautiful. I'm partial to all your orange/yellow ones :)

Thanks for all the info! I've made my list for Home Depo!