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blupit007
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« on: November 14, 2011, 09:52:57 PM » |
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Hi Everyone,
I need some help here. One of my favorite hibiscus is mad at me! It was the only one to yellow and drop leaves when I brought it inside for the winter. I have had some other plants just start to show a yellow leaf here or there which I expected. They started this week. But the one in question we will call it M as it is not one I got from HVH. Sorry Charlie, but I need some advise on this one.
I brought everyone inside the beginning of October to overwinter in my warm sunny windows. M started within the week of yellowing then dropping the leaves. There are no mites in site as I have been mite free for a year now. M is now almost naked! The remaining leaves are green and healthy and stay strong till they start to yellow... The wood is hard and healthy too. There are nodes that are still green and look like they may sprout but I dont know if that is new, or leftover from summer.
It was very vigerous this summer and took off. The growth was spectacular.
Now, my question is, do I take a bunch of cuttings and try to root it so I don't loose it? I already put one cutting in my cloner and it didn't take, so I think it is not one to root easily. Or will cutting it cause stress. It may come back and if I were to cut it, it wont have a chance? M is a difficult cv to find...
UGH! ~Kristen~
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-Kristen
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Charlie
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« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2011, 06:05:31 AM » |
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That's a tough one, Kristen. If it was mine I would cut all the branches back except for the one with the most leaves, and then graft the wood to make sure I did not lose the variety altogether. It depends on what is wrong with it what will happen next.
Charlie
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blupit007
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« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2011, 06:45:20 AM » |
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But if it may just be a Shock situation, and it lost all its leaves from it,(like it will come back once it settles) wouldn't chopping it up cause more damage to the plant (not letting it recover)? Here's the truth... I am awful at grafting :~) and will probably loose all the cuttings by attempting to graft them anyhow. So that is why I am worried about stressing the mama plant out more. I am only hoping this is a temporary situation. It looks like the wood is still healthy... AGH! I dont know what to do!
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-Kristen
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 1882
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2011, 06:19:45 PM » |
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Hey Kristen,
That plant reminds me a lot of many of mine when they decided to shut down for winter and lost their leaves except for a few at the top. Some kept nice green baby shoots (like yours) ready for the plant to signal grow time again. Some even lost those little green shoots and had a brown fuzzy shoot at the nodes and still they awoken months later.
So my guess is your plant is now hibernating. I would have patience and see if anything else negatively develops. Some of my CVs last winter did this for 4 months or more. Don't panic, watch closely and let's see.
Farmer D
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blupit007
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« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2011, 07:24:26 AM » |
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Ok, I was thinking it went into sleep mode... but wanted to be sure. I don't understand why though. It is in my living room which is where our wood stove is so the room is usually really warm and it gets a ton of sun. Maybe it was just such a dramatic change from our intense summer where it was in full hot sun to this...
I have had my garden variety shut down for the winter. It came back nicely. Hopefully this is that situation.
I am not a good grafter, so to cut it would be to stress it more for nothing! lol
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-Kristen
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helixturnhelix
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« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2011, 10:32:22 AM » |
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Hibiscus are tropical and do not go completely dormant. When temperatures at night dip into the 40s they slow down growth to pretty much homeostatsis (the amount of metabolizism needed to stay alive) and may lose some leaves, due to stress, which is what Darren observes with his hibiscus during the winter. If temps drop below freezing that is when water inside the cells freeze and lyse because of the formation of sharp ice crystals. This is what kills tropical plants that have no protective mechanism against freezes. Judging by the fact that you brought your plants indoors before any cold nights (in the low 40s) I am inclined to think that it is not in "sleep mode" or dormancy.
If you read the hibiscus doctor tab on HVH you can see that yellow leaves and dropping is due to two things stress, age or spidermites. Since you are an avid Kontos users and advocate, spidermites is unlikely. Age would be an acceptable assumption if it was a few leaves only. The sheer volume of leaf loss leads to the third possibility, stress. The action of changing the light intensity and humidity from an outdoor to indoor environment is what triggered this leaf loss. Also your mention of a wood stove in the room, makes me think that humidity is probably much lower in that particular room than the outdoors. If you just leave the plant alone and decrease on the frequency of water you giving it, (less leaves means less evaportransporation and less water demand) it will grow back. I have moved my plants from state to state over the last three years and they drop thier leaves and rebound back in a few months. Pruning them at this stage usually caused more problems, so I wait till I see new growth and then prune. The exception is my Vin E which didnt do anything for months and when I pruned it started to send out new growth, but this was also during the summer so temperatures were ideal for growth.
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 1882
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2011, 05:47:26 PM » |
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Chris that is once again great information. Here are a couple of plants I currently have that are in the same state. The results are almost identical to winter cold stress but the causes are different.
Sizzle got moved to a shadier spot and was already in the process of losing all it's leaves due to too much sun in original spot planted. It is very slowly adjusting and has not lost any of it's baby leaves on all the nodes as well as the buds and big leaves up top. I expect it to perk up late spring.
Apricot Cookie was moved due to unhappiness in original spot which was dappled shade. Unfortunately I dropped it while moving it and it lost most of the soil from the root ball and went into severe shock. As you can see by the pic it looks barren but all the nodes have little green shoots that have been there for a few months now. I suspect if it comes back I won't see anything until mid summer at earliest.
Farmer D
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helixturnhelix
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« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2011, 06:35:25 PM » |
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Hmm Sizzle looks pretty good, I see new growth on the top and towards the bottom, so I bet it will make a full recovery.
Apricot Cookie does not look good. Do you have any Gibberellic Acid (wake up spray)? I would start using that ASAP, also wouldnt hurt to do the scratch test to see if the bush is still alive. Hopefully they make it, if not Tahitian Orange Rainbow has a similar bloom to Apricot Cookie, but with more pronounced rings. Do you have that one yet?
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 1882
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2011, 07:11:59 PM » |
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Chris you're too funny. That spot is reserved for T Orange Rainbow if this one doesn't make it (it's already on my wish list). We're on the same wavelength... I do have the wake up spray so I'll start tomorrow. I'll scratch it also but pretty sure it is green all the way up until the tip top.
Farmer D
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