Hi & welcome to Gardenweb. Great gift! Does the pot have a drain hole? I would probably move it to a removable pot that fits inside this pretty pot if it does not have a drain hole. Then when it's time to give it a drink, take it out so any excess water can drip away in a sink so it doesn't kill your pretty plant by staying in the bottom of the outer pot and rotting the roots. This would not be specific to Dief, but to any potted plant. If you have pets or children, you should keep this plant out of reach so it can't accidentally be ingested, or broken open by them to expose them to the sap/juices, which is a known irritant. If you get the sap on your hands, you would want to wash it off to make sure it doesn't get in your mouth, eyes, nose. (My SOP after handling any plant sap/juices, whether known irritants or not. Many house plants can cause various easily avoided irritations.) Just feeling the unbroken leaves, stems, (or roots) of this plant is considered harmless. The house plant forum is the best place to ask further about Dief. This post was edited by purpleinopp on Tue, Dec 17, 13 at 15:11

Are there new leaves coming out? Unless a LOT of the leaves fall off, it probably isn't that much to worry about. How long has it been in that location? With the sun getting stronger, it could be that the leaves are getting "sunburned". The damage looks like a burn; which can be caused by too much sun or cold wind. Hibiscus do like to be fertilized every couple of months. I'd up the number of times you fertilize. Miracle Grow is fine. Also, you might want to water the plant when it needs it instead of a set schedule. As the plant grows and the roots system grows with it, it could need water more often. Although, the damage doesn't look like too little water. I fould a site with some good info on this topic. Good luck! Barb Here is a link that might be useful: yellow hibiscus leaves

The yellowing of lower leaves is normal. It can be accelerated by stress on plants or nutrient deficiency. I'm not sure if there's any disease going on in the scan you show. I'm sure there will be someone to help you diagnose it if there does happen to be a disease.

nancyjane, they leave big mounds of dug up soil around the entrances/exits to their tunnels. Tunnels can extend forever (invisibly) underground, and normally feeding holes will not have any mounding around them, just a hole. They will also eat the roots right out from under the plants from their tunnels without even coming above ground (can't tell you how many suddenly dead plants I've literally just gently pulled from the ground with no roots, and found a tunnel underneath). We resort to raised beds and, if we must plant in the ground, everything goes in a wire gopher basket. I'm talking about the pocket gophers we have down here, not sure about the tunneling habits of other gopher types.