After growing roses indoors I will provide my experience. First I live in Portland, Oregon zone 5 but also lived in Vancouver which may be the same zone or one over or under. Anyway, because of our humidity and seasonal temps, roses grow well here in e, w, s, or north areas but two of those divisions work better. For example, southeast or Western southern, etc. Obviously you wouldn't be able to manipulate their growth patterns but they'll live. Outside on my balcony at least. I grew miniatures and regular sized roses. The regular in the long run are just too big of monsters to love adequately in a house overall. However, miniatures in zone 5 do well provided you have a humidifier or spray on the soil everyday, and water them every night. I open my window everyday to prevent mildew. The light from my studio is eastern so it's not great but I think my florescents contribute to an extra 4-6 hours of indoor light as well. Being a barista, my lights are on at random times but mostly very early or very late. Either way, my roses bloom, but not as fast as they do outside. They are in 2 gallon containers, they don't need 5 but I prune and snip them very often so they don't bush. I get powdery mildew but I spend time with all the leaves and clean them it's not bad. Aphids see another story. They don't leave. My solution? I bought a plant they RATHER eat and they leave my other plants alone for me to manage. Sometimes I'll have to deadhead blooms early if I noticed lots of aphids developing on a particular part(usually the flower :( ) but it get to live on and will produce more blooms. That's it really! People saying it's difficult probably don't live in the right zone. It's very risky in the right zone and is an everyday chore if you don't love tending and mending plants as an everyday hobby so just keep that in mind and you can grow anything :) btw I grow them close to my carnivorous plants;)

I started Hibiscus syriacus 'Bluebird' from seed last year. ItÂs growing in a 2 gallon nursery pot right now, they are not hardy in our zone, so therefore you need to bring it indoors or store it somewhere cool over winter. The best thing to do is let it go dormant for the winter so its will save all its energy for the spring. By doing this, do you have a cold room to store vegetables or a spare room downstairs where its dark and cool? I have a pumphouse that is 12' deep and thatÂs where I overwinter a lot of tender plants. When storing dormant plants, you want it to sleep for the winter, donÂt be alarmed when you see their leaves drop, only water very little like twice just enough to keep it alive, no fertilizer and keep cool and dark. I think I brought mine up too early this spring, I guess I didnÂt acclimatize it to the spring cool air, sure it was alive, but it dropped all its leaves and is just starting to leaf out again. Next year I wonÂt bring it up till around May 1st. Btw, if you do a search you will find a Overwintering Tenders thread. You can also overwinter it by a sunny window, however you run into all kinds of problems IME, infestation, overwatering, dry air, etc, etc. Good luck, Sharon

Where every you plant them, plan on lots of seedlings. Even in their second year they can flower from seedlings and leave seeds behind. You probably have some flower buds in the branch already so you'll get blooms, which means lots of seeds. These plants may take a longer time to grow but they are very winter hardy, drought resistant, flower readily and even flower really well in the shade. They flower profusely for over a month, sparsely before and after for a while. My daughter has 2 thick rows of these on the west side of her house but on a dewy morning when they're all in bloom and the sun is somewhat shining out there somewhere, they have the most fairy tailish scene that I've ever seen. Just so unique and I'm not at all that kind of a dreamy kind of person. The purple with pink eyes blend their colors in many of the flowers. Buds to. I so liked the them I plucked out tree sized ones and moved them to my own yard so my granddaughter would always have them around. I to, have to find a better place then where they're at. But oh, those seedlings. You can get your hands on a weed preventing mat eventually, but while it's small just remove spent flowers. An OK privacy hedge as well, but not until early June or so around here. -Sandy

I bought a couple of small plants this weekend and the leaves look like a maple tree. I'm glad I didn't start them from seeds because I probably would have torn them out!