auntyara - Beautiful picture! I started mine from seed in early March and I have a couple about 3" or so tall with maybe 3 true leaves. They grow really slowly - I assume that is par for the course? What kind of temperatures/conditions can they take? I live near Seattle - we have cool and rainy (but not frosty) weather through June. Will they be happy with daytime temperatures in the 50s and nighttime temps in the 30s/40s?

There are a number of sterile, or supposedly sterile Hibiscus varieties. Lord Baltimore is NOT completely sterile. It will cross with some other Hibiscus, such as Hibiscus coccineus which is one of Lord Baltimore's parents. I made such a cross, and ended up with an extremely vigorous, free-blooming hybrid with more attractive foliage than Lord Baltimore. A drawback it has is that it needs a LOT of room to spread out. Plant Delights sells a tall, sturdy, very erect hybrid known as Red Flyer. I have NEVER had this plant blow down in high winds! It is said to be sterile, but I have been able to get a few seed pods from it. I am NOT sure about the parent of these seeds, but could be something quite unusual! This season I must label my crosses! Hibiscus mutabilis 'rubrus' is a reddish pink blooming plant that will outperform most, if not all other hibiscus varieties in my experience. This variety has bloomed for me in New York from July to December 24th! Talk about bloom power from a semi-tropical Hibiscus that is easy to grow in New York and New Jersey gardens with only a light mulch and good siting! Wow! This variety is perhaps the most sterile of all! I have not yet been able to unlock its secrets! There are also a couple of Hibiscus syriacus/paramutabilis hybrids which perform almost, but not entirely like the mutabilis clone.

Bon, When you have the following hibiscus species, I believe they all are capable of crossing with one another: Hibiscus moscheutos, H. coccineus, H. palustris, H. laevis. and H. militaris. I know that H. moscheutos and H. coccineus can cross because I got a volunteer one year (not from saved seed, obviously, but just from seed the parent plant dropped on the ground) that was a combination of the two. My H. moscheutos was a swamp mallow with flowers that had white petals with a red eye, and my H. coccineus was solid red. The volunteer plant had solid pink flowers but also with a slightly dark pink, not red, eye. Unfortunately its seed appeared sterile as none of the ones I saved germinated at all. A few years later we got an identical pink-flowered volunteer but its seed also were sterile. I still have the red hibiscus that is H. coccineus but no longer have the swamp mallow (too many dry years with no swampy conditons must have been more than it could take), and the pink-flowered and other red-flowered ones I have are Luna, so I think they are H. moscheutos too. Roselle is awesome and makes gigantic plants. I space mine 5 to 8 feet apart and grow shorter things like sweet potatoes, ornamental sweet potatoes, peppers (they like the shade) or southern peas in the open space between them. I have to stake my roselles after they are a couple of feet tall, or once they hit 4' of 5' feet, they start falling over from the weight of all the limbs. Dawn

It’s so nice to see so many gardens looking good in the dog days of August. It’s been a very odd season weather wise, but, with all the rain we’ve had, it seems to have smoothed things over. My garden has peaked really and it starts to go downhill from here. When the angle of the sun starts to shift I end up with a lot less sunlight in some areas. I’m thinking of starting to pull some things apart and start getting ready for next year soon. I’m looking at all the Hibiscus here and wish I had more sun to have more. I remember it was Woody’s photos of her very full plants full of flowers that pushed me to buy one. I had a few different varieties in the past that didn’t do as well in less than full sun. This one is 3 years old and this year it had so many buds. I do like the combination with the hydrangea. Dee, it is pretty with the Perovskia too. Mine is ‘Blue Spire’ and I have seen Perovskia perform better in soils that are not as heavy as mine. That photo is from a week ago. It’s still blooming, I’ll have to take another photo. It’s been blooming 3 weeks now. Nidnay, the rain has flattened two of my Hydrangea with the larger blossoms. One with smaller blooms without the weight has fared better. GardenHo, I set my camera on Auto and take a lot of photos thinking a couple will be good and that’s usually how it works. So many look awful…lol. I read somewhere the light for garden photos is best either early morning or late afternoon and never at noon and that’s the only thing I pay attention to. That is one of my favorite photos this season. It’s so great when your garden looks it’s best and we can all take photos to capture the moment because it doesn’t usually last very long. But hopefully over a season you end up with a series of moments when the garden is really pretty. GardenHo, did your Hibiscus have branches that snapped off? If not, I’d wager that it will come back next season just fine. The root system should be fine with all the rain we’ve been having.