Thank you for your replies. Yes, staking! Yes, I should have thought of that sooner. The stems are so thick and splayed that I'm not sure I can get them up and around some stakes and garden twine, but I'll try. This plant is pretty carefree, and I've been working on a slope at the opposite end of our property, so wasn't observant enough. Thank you for sending me to Dave's Garden. This site and Dave's Garden are wonderful! I registered and was able to look at a couple of pages of examples. Wow, the novice gardener learns! First that mallow is part of the hibiscus family. There are many examples that look exactly like mine, but I see mainly the flowers themselves--need closer look at size of plants and leaves. I am on dial-up at warp speed, so I can't do anymore today as my eyes and patience have had it. I'll do some more research, thanks for your help. alleycallie. PS: And I'll try to get to the computers at our local rural library which do have DSL to look up the proper "family" or is it "genus" (?) name first before posting.

That sort of looks like it. The flowers look right, just not the form. The seed pods look right. Thanks, I will try it out.

Cal, Rose of sharon don't grow like your tree. It was staked and pruned to grow like that, it is a bush, not a tree really. By staking it like that, you are encouraging it to be weak, it has support and it has to learn to grow the strength to stand by itself. Take all the stakes out from around it. It's too big to be staked like that. Let it stand on its own as soon as possible. If the flowers droop let them droop. As soon as the heavy winds are over, unstake that bush and leave it alone. DONT FERTILIZE it til next year if you have to. Hopefully it will root in fast for you, and mulch it good in the winter. Nurseries fertilize the shrubs to the point of ruining them so that they grow tall fast, but the growth is weak rather than strong if it had grown on its own. So give it a couple of years with no fertilizer at all.

If anyone is looking for these, NOW is the time of year to be getting them at local garden centers. For anyone in the Denver area, you should be able to get them at Paulino's and/or Timberline Gardens. In their catalog this year, Paulino's lists these varieties: 'Lord Baltimore', 'Lady Baltimore', 'Clown', 'Crimson Wonder', 'Fantasia', 'Kopper King', 'Moy Grande', 'Blue River II', 'Southern Belle Mix', and 'Disco Belle' in all the colors. If you stop by there, be sure to ask for a copy of their perennial catalog. The heights of these, depending on variety, range from about 4' to 7' or more, and the flower size ranges from about 6" to a good foot in diameter. Each flower lasts only one day, but they are constantly replaced by many, many more until fall. Mine continued until almost Halloween last year. The wilting flowers will drop off by themselves in a few days, but to keep them looking neater (since there are so many flowers on established plants), I usually go around every couple days and pull dying flowers off--you don't need a scissors. If I don't have something with me to collect them in, I just toss them in a pile at the bottom of the plant and pick up the pile later. Last fall, when I was cutting them down for winter, I snipped off a whole bunch of the dry seed heads to use in dried arrangements. These are definitely NOT xeric perennials, and will require consistant watering all summer. They can be grown in wet to boggy soil, so you don't need to worry about overwatering them. The most important thing to know about them is that they come up very, very, very late in spring! I have 3 established Disco Belle's, and they didn't appear at all until the beginning of June this year. So be sure you know where they are and just wait--and wait--and wait for them. When they do come up they grow VERY quickly! BUT, she said with a tear in her eye, my 3 beautiful pink Disco Belle's that are supposed to get about 4' tall and are already almost 5', and just started blooming within the last 2 weeks, got TOTALLY smooshed down by the inch of rain I got yesterday in less than half an hour! I'm not really complaining since we need the rain so badly, but I sure do hope they're able to stand back up by themselves when they dry off. (It's raining again right now (Thornton), and with what I got overnight, I'm up to almost 2 inches now!. Boy, is everything ever green!) Here's a link to the Hibiscus info at Perennials.com. They list 17 varieties, but, unfortunately, only have pictures of a few of them. Happy gardening all, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Hibiscus at Perennials.com