Fancy tropical hibiscus seedlings

Howdy Hib folks, A few months ago I went crazy and purchased 700.00 bucks worth hibs seeds from Australia and a couple other over seas countries. I have 3 trays of them planted now, and after a couple weeks they are showing signs of coming to life. Although the germ rate so far is down, I am being patient with them. I don't want to plant the others until I see how these do. My question is should Fancies be pinched at some time after they are 3 inches or so? The reason why I ask is I grew sunset hibiscus, which I don't think is a fancy.........but it grew 3 feet tall and flowered, but the stem looked so skinny it often fell over Its quite ugly actually. Will fancy Hibs do the same?

I can't help you on when's the right time to pinch, but if your stems are so skinny they're falling over I would also check on your lighting--skinny stems often happen when seedlings are stretching towards the light. For best results, you want your lights no more than a few inches above the tops of the seedlings (this is true regardless of what type of seeds you're growing)

As I use scientific names I don't know what a fancy or a sunset hibiscus is.
If you are talking about hybrid of hibiscus rosa-sinensis (what it's mainly treated in this forum) some growers pinch their seedlings once they have 3 or 4 true leaves. Others, like me, let the majority of seedlings to grow by themselves. Some will branch nicely without any kind of help and some won't give any branch and they reach 2 meters high before they bloom for the first time. I must admit that some pinched seedlings of my own have better shape than unpinched ones.
There are some hibiscus societies that send seeds free (around 20 seeds) or just for the price of the sending. To pay 700 dollars would mean you've bought several thousands seeds. In US there are people that sells hibiscus seeds of great crosses.
Are known growers the people who you bought seeds from?

Regards

Carlos

I also wonder where you got them from--there are some shady hibiscus seed vendors on Ebay and probably elsewhere. Assuming these are tropicals, if the seeds you bought were listed as crosses and there were no suggestions made of what the flowers would look like then the seller is probably legit, but if they showed pictures of fancy flowers and tried to make it seem like that's what you were buying seeds for then who knows what you really have (the tropical hibiscus hybrids won't come true from seed). The shady vendors have pics which are frequently photoshopped into fantastical colors that don't even exist and try to make you think that's what you're buying when even if that flower did actually exist it wouldn't come true from seed.

I spent 500.00 with a company on ebay called absolute Botany, 5 seed packages, for instance one variety called California Blondes, seeds sold for 50.00 for 5 seeds, did I get took? I bought from another gentleman on ebay from australia that had crosses, pics of the two flowers crossed, but no pic of what the new flower would look like, I spent a couple hundred with him,

The seller absolute_botany, from Singapour, is a fraud so you won't get any nice hibiscus, if you get some hibiscus, from those seeds.
This guy changes his ebay name every time his store is closed. He use a lot Paintshop Pro.

Regards

Carlos

BTW, if you tell me the nickname in ebay of the australian guy I can tell if you can trust him or not. I know many australian people that grow hibiscus but none of them sell seeds on ebay.

Regards

Carlos

I can't recall or seem to find the guys name, but I have some crosses MoondropxAztec princess and Herm Gellerx Georgia pearl and Unchained melodyXDragons breath and Emerald Isle x georgias pearl and Alan Poole x Amber suzanne and Jim Purdie x Hot mustard to name a few. That really bums me out I got took, its my own fault for not researching things a lesson for all who venture in Hibs.

Who are reputable hib seeds sellers Carlo? Thanks for the news by the way.........Steve

If you ordered the seeds in the last couple months you can look up past purchases on Ebay up to I think 60 days in the past, that might help you find the seller's name. I don't know if you can go back farther than 60 days though.

Carlos will know better than me, but with the Australian guy the fact that he's telling you the names of the parents and wasn't trying to pretend that he knew what the seedlings will grow up to look like is a good sign. If he was also charging $50 for 5 seeds then you overpaid, but at the very least maybe you'll get some nice flowers out of it. I

If you want to try growing some tropicals from seed, a great source is the American Hibiscus Society, I think all you have to do is pay postage to get seeds from them. http://www.americanhibiscus.org/

Uhmm! Those are good names for the crosses. Then it comes to my mind that the seller's name is Allan Little. Can it be? If so, first I didn't know he was selling seeds on ebay and second you can trust him and you will have very nice blooms on those seedlings.

Another ebay seller you can trust is Dick Johnson from Tahiti.

Liz, you don't need to pay postage for the AHS seeds. They're completely free. Paying postage is just mandatory for the IHS and AuHS Seed Banks.

Regards

Carlos

BTW the seller from Singapour still mantains open his webpage. At you can see these hibs are a bit photoshop-ed
http://www.absolutebotany.com/servlet/the-389/HIBISCUS-RARE-BLACK-CV/Detail
http://www.absolutebotany.com/servlet/the-377/HIBISCUS-dsh--dsh-NEW!FAIRY-FIERY-RAINBOW-ROSA/Detail
http://www.absolutebotany.com/servlet/the-358/HIBISCUS-dsh--dsh-RARE!-CV2-GREEN-MONSTER/Detail

Regards

Carlos

I agree about Dick Johnson being a reputable seller. Many of his cultivars have won awards. One is up for the 2008 Seedling of the Year (no, I can't remember the name, but it gorgeous...).
Barb

I'm reading this for the first time, and I also bought a lot of seeds from absolute_botany out of Singapore. I'm crushed that he's a fraud. I've had very bad experiences with fraud on eBay of late, and Paypal is often completely useless at getting money back. So much for the eBay/Paypal claims of safe shopping and taking a hard line with rip-off artists! Bah Humbug! I got sucked in on the Wild Blondes as well, as the photos were of the most incredible flowers. Now that I hear they are photoshopped, I guess they were quite unbelievable as well! Tell me invermontdirt, did you complain to eBay about this? I'm going to, now that I've heard this.

Bridget

Noy yet, I am not sure they will do anything, because until they bloom, how can we be postively sure. by then its to late, they can hide behind that, the turn around time on a plant be exactly what it was sold as is way to long, its definately a risk. Have you geminated yours yet?

Hi,
I too was taken by this seller but was able to get my money back through Paypal by fighting it. I also complained to Ebay as well.

I filed my paypal claim tonight also.

The australia sellers names are Allen Little and Mike Lazzaro, I finally found them.

I filed the Paypal claim the same day I read this and posted my first reply. Because it has passed the 45 day magic date for Paypal, they won't do anything. I have complained to them before about their arbitrary dates not working in some cases, and seeds are one of them. I also registered a complaint in eBay, but no response from them. I checked the profile for Absolute_botany, and they have made all of their feedback Private, which disallows them to sell on any eBay sites. Probably working on their next fallback profile at the moment. It is frustrating that as much as eBay and Paypal blow their horns about looking after their buyers and shop without worrying because you are covered, when the fat hits the fire, they only assist if the buyer falls into a small category and the rest of us are basically ignored.

I have so many other seeds germinating at the moment (mostly succulents and cacti) I haven't even attempted to plant them. I was waiting until spring, but now I don't know when I will get them planted. Bah Humbug!!

Buttercup, you may want to review your Ebay experience on Bizrate.com (store ratings). This is an option:

http://www.bizrate.com/features/merchant/review_write__mid--27167.html

Unfortunately seed sales are a very tiny percentage of the sales on Paypal/Ebay so to them it's probably not worth the time and extra hassle of making the rules different than for the other 99.9% of things for which a 45 day period to dispute/complain is more than adequate (and extending the dispute period for everything would create a lot more work for them and probably increase the number of people who get something in perfect condition and manage to break it themselves and then dispute the charge, etc). The complaints do work to some extent--Absolute_botany does keep getting shut down, what they really need is a better mechanism to prevent people like that from coming back with a new username--from what I've seen that's the real problem, a scammer gets shut down, but then they are able to keep coming back over and over again.