Do you Grow Hibiscus in the House too?

[Charlie]

Kerry, just don't be in the shower when you do it!

I do worry about too hot water. Chris's technique of putting the hot water in a spray bottle first would allow the water to cool some before it hits the leaves. The fine spray would also cool as it went through the air, seems like. I tried "sterilizing" some hibiscus cuttings before using them in tissue culture experiments and found there is a thin line between cooking them and disinfecting them of fungus. If memory serves, 130F was the temperature recommended for killing most plant pathogens but that was too high to soak the hibiscus in without damaging the wood. Whether those details are correct or not, I did find that too hot water damaged hibiscus.

Charlie

[helixturnhelix]

This technique is very good, I have cleared all spidermite infestations just thoroughly spraying the plants with hot water every day for about a week.  Then I maintain by doing the same thing once a week there after.  It doesn't require you to move your plants and it is a lot less effort than lugging all of them to the tub

[Charlie]

Chris, this is a very appealing alternative method for controlling mites. Now that you have confirmed that it is working for you we may want to feature it somewhere on the site or in a newsletter because for some it would be ideal. I wonder if it would work for larger collections that get sprayed with a larger sprayer, say a 3 gallon back pack sprayer. The water would cool more by the time the last plants got sprayed but it might not cool too much. Someone will have to experiment and let us know.

Charlie

[helixturnhelix]

This pic is for Cindy,  Everyone seems to be a adapting quite well.

Left to Right:

Burnt Saffron
Rain Drop
Cosmic Gold
Heaven's Scent
Cindy's Heart
Raku

[Cindy]

Your little jungle looks great, Chris!  It's just beautiful!

My houseplants LOVED the western Washington weather and the high humidity. They were in a warm house and yet the relative humidity in the air was always very high. So they grew like crazy. Before that I lived in the high mountains at Lake Tahoe, and they had a really hard time at high altitude with cold, dry air. The windows would be covered with a 1-2-inch layer of ice for 4 months out of the year, and it was just too cold for tropical plants. So I was amazed when I moved to Washington and they took off and turned into giant plants. :-)

Cindy

[helixturnhelix]

I am glad you like it Cindy!  I am really looking forward to what will happen when there is more sun, I am expecting lots of blooms

It is pretty amazing the difference high humidity makes,  I have a Philodendron gloriossium that struggled in California and Colorado, which is now sending out 8 + inch leaves!  Pretty amazing!  Also spider mites don't seem to be as big a problem as they were in Colorado...

Looking forward to a great indoor growing year, I will keep you posted!