I'm not a regular visitor to this forum, but I'd like to share what I bought today. Had been to a nursery where I found these two lovely hibiscus plants. Pricing was high, but I thought it is worth it because I needed some attractive ones. How do you like them? The one on the left has 3 distinct colour shading.
They are beautiful!
Thanks. I planted them this morning in the ground. They are grafted varieties. Does anyone know if any special care is to be taken for such plants? I can see the 'v' cut joint. When I opened the cover there were healthy roots.
We grow them here in south Texas in zone 9 with the morning sun but our afternoon sun is too hot for hibiscus. Those are lovely! If you feed them hibiscus food be careful to water the plant very well before you put those granules around the plant and don't put the fertilizer too close to the main stem. Their roots burn easily.
That is why I just use regular fertilizer. They also like a lot of water.
Good luck!
Thanks for the tips, gessiegail. I did not know there was special 'hibiscus food'!
I bought a couple more yesterday from another nursery and I am afraid I made wrong buys. Both are still in their grafted positions and too raw, perhaps. They were in the green house and today after I planted last evening, it did not tolerate the afternoon sun [summer is still at large]. I noticed wilting of leaves. :( Will it recover? Haven't taken pictures yet.
Oh yes, they recover !! I have often forgotten to water and the leaves wiled..........the afternoon sun is just too much for them even when they are fully grown.
My worry is that this is very raw.
One reason why they have special hibiscus food is that they don't like a lot of phosphorus like many other plants do. So if you do buy regular fertilizer, make sure you avoid the "bloom booster" type of fertilizers since those are usually very high in phosphorus.
I have always had good luck w/hibiscus. Something I wasn't aware of until about 5 yrs. ago is that there are so many different types of tropical hibiscus: tall 10-20', not as tall 9-10', medium 4-6', and small ones 2-3'. They all need the same type of fertilizer and water. I have never had trouble w/them being in the sun all day long in Victoria, TX and in Houston and surrounding area. They do love water, Epsom salts and hibiscus fertilizer - low middle number - and they appreciate having a "haircut" every so often. This keeps them in shape, keeps them full and the blooms coming as they bloom on new growth. By a "haircut" I mean that they appreciate being sort of having the tips pinched all over and that is easily done w/hedge clippers. If a branch gets errant you can cut it off and the bush doesn't mind at all. And I love that down here we can keep them in the ground w/no trouble winter and summer. They are a no fuss type bush.
Ann
This message was edited Feb 2, 2009 9:07 AM
Is it? I now have to avoid putting wood ash to them. I have much of it since we use firewood for hotwater boiler and we get a few grams of ash each day and I dump it out in a place and occasionally spread/mix it with soil near plants. Adding it to garden bed has helped to some extent. I don't put much fertilizer. Sometimes I use neem cake and leaf manure.
plantladyhou,
Thanks for the inspiration and information.
This message was edited Feb 2, 2009 8:09 PM
I try to illustrate how the second batch two plants are, using a rough sketch. He advised me to plant it deep enough so that the visible mother part that is not tied up is fully in the ground and the grafted part of the plant above the level of the ground.
Very good drawing, Dinu. I would suppose that the seller didn't want the cuts to rot from being in moist soil so just wanted to make sure that you kept just the "old" part in the ground. This is something I know absolutely nothing about so I'm hoping that someone more knowledgeable than I will step in.
Ann
Ann, I've done as per his instructions. I had bought one from him some years back and the mother plant grew better and the grafted part did well for a couple of years and somehow died up. I did not know then, to trim off growth on the mother part or plant it the way he told me this time. I had the mother part up above the ground earlier. Yes, I hope someone will step in with more information.
Hi Dinu
Both are pretty.
Kaleem
I took the picture last night. On the left shows the grafted part. Note the yellowed leaf - just one day and it yellowed! On the right is the flower - the bud opened the next day after I bought. Wilted in the sun. Note the 'hurt' leaves.
Hi Kaleem
How are you.. long time... Thanks.
Hibiscus are kind of fussy and will have leaves turn yellow and drop even if you don't really do anything wrong--if you let them get too dry, or too wet, or you're inconsistent about watering they will tend to do that. It's really not a big deal, the yellow leaves will drop off and be quickly replaced by new ones. To minimize the yellowing leaves though, make sure you're watering them consistently, and I'd try to keep them out of the hot afternoon sun since that will contribute to big fluctuations in moisture level.
I took a pic last night. On the left shows how the graft is tied up. I looked at the soil and it looked old enough. I'd once bought a similar thing with new soil and it never survived because it was kept on sale from the green house. It was a mistake on my part and cunning on the seller's part. Now I'm "twice shy". That one was a raw graft that needed some special care which I did not know.
On the right is the pic of the flower that had opened yesterday. Observe the leaves. Today, they are yellower. I put up a shade net over it and also protected the ones posted on top with plastic, so that direct sun will not fall on it for the entire duration of the noon and afternoon which are peak periods, what with my garden in on the west of the house.
I'll see that I maintain water consistently in the bed. Thanks for the tips ecrane3.
The yellow leaf you can see on the left looks fairly typical of what I see if I make my hibiscus a little bit unhappy. But I worry a bit about the wilting you can see in the right half of that picture--that doesn't look like the wilting I'll typically see if I forget to water for a bit too long. I don't know if it's gotten way too much or way too little water or if there's something else going on, but I would definitely try to put it in a shadier place and really check on your watering to make sure you're giving it the right amount.
I've also never bought a grafted plant that was still at the stage of needing to have the grafted part wrapped--the ones I get that are grafted the graft has fully "taken" and the care is just like any other hibiscus. But if yours is still in somewhat of a delicate condition because the graft is fairly new I'd definitely try to keep it in cooler, shadier area. Once it's a bit older then you can probably move it to a little more sun (although it'll always be happiest if you protect it from hot afternoon sun in your climate) You might try posting on the hibiscus forum for some advice too--there may be some people there who have more experience with how to deal with something that's fairly recently grafted.
I have put up a shade net soon after I noticed that wilting and now the plant seems to have recovered. It is now getting filtered sun and it has to tolerate the summer heat for the next two months, at least. It will be warmer this time. It already touched 36C on the last day of February! Mysore records usually a highest of 38C at the peak. With global warming and alarming things like that, who knows? That hibiscus plant initially shed off its 3-4 leaves that caused worry, but the younger ones that were there at that time remained green and showing signs of some growth. There is also a bud!
Here is the pic.
