My hibiscus journey so far.

[chiquitita99]

Hello everyone. I am a newbie at hibiscus growing and purchased my first two plants at my local grocery store in April 2009. I don’t have any idea what their names were, but they both produced beautiful flowers throughout the summer. At that time, I didn’t have room in my house to winter them so my neighbor kept them for me that first year. One survived and one did not, so in June of 2010, I bought a yellow one from a local nursery and both of them produced beautiful flowers the summer of 2010 and the summer of 2011. This summer my original plant still produced beautiful flowers, but the yellow one had only one flower on August 31st.

Anyway, this is how I got started, but in February of 2012, I decided to order a couple of “babies” from Cindy and Charlie. They arrived in excellent shape the first part of May and the following is a little piece of their journey to date.

[chiquitita99]

I posted the last picture of what my younguns look like today in hopes that someone can give me an idea how much I should trim them back or if I even need to?

[davidwood]

Hi Chiq [hihi doubt thats your name], can you send another photo of the cv at the front, looks to me like it may be a little dry.

[chiquitita99]

Haha David! No, I am Cat. Chiquitita is my beagles; one is Chiqui and the other was Tita (named after the Abba song “Chiquitita”).

I don’t know all the hibiscus lingo and am not sure what a cv is, but I think you mean the plant on the right?

Hope so cause here it is!

[davidwood]

Yes Cat cv is the plant, I did know what it stood for but I have a long time forgot haha, no doubt someone will put us straight later.

The cv is ok and no need to worry but it does look a little lifeless, actually a spray of Supernova would do wonders and if you are going to get serious with this Hibb hobby then Supernova is a must.

Pruning [trimming] is a must for me, some dont but I do it all the time, it gets you far more branches [which can mean more buds] and lets you control the shape of the bush and give it strength. Just cut about a third of the branch back, about a quarter of an inch above the leaf node, its easy, you may if you want rather than throw the bit away you have cut try to grow a cutting from it.

I and others will gladly help and advise on any questions you have, also there is a ton of information if you look back on the Forum.

[chiquitita99]

Thank you so much for the info David. I will definitely be ordering some Supernova.

I trimmed my two older plants today, but will wait for a bit before I do the party girl and wild allure. Both of them still have a couple of blossoms, so I’m gonna wait and see what happens with those.

Hope I don’t bore you, but I am a picture freak, so thought I’d show you a few more pics that I took today.

The 1st is my party girl from yesterday still going strong when the sun came in the window this morning.

The 2nd pic is the same flower early this afternoon.

The last is my party girl and wild allure when I set them outside for a couple of hours for some fresh air.

[davidwood]

No problem Cat and they are looking nice and healthy. Just take care about putting them outside for a bit of fresh air though, you might think you are doing good but if there is a big difference in temperature they will drop there leaves, some more than others but all cv's are temperamental, and for sure they don't like sudden change.

[chiquitita99]

Hi David, when I put my plants outside the other day it was 79°F with a very light breeze. It’s 83 here now, but the wind is blowing like crazy so no fresh air today.

I posted a couple of pictures of my one little wild allure bloom today on the October Flower Photos of the Day thread, but wanted to post a couple of pictures of my 2 other hibs to see if maybe you know what they are.

Neither one had a tag when I bought them, so for now I just refer to them as my yellow and orange hibiscus.

Do these look familiar to you?