April Flower Photos of the Day

[Kyle]

Was a quiet winter for most of my soil grown hibiscus.  Not much to post on the forum this winter.   
This winter I let my hibiscus do what they want.    Their growing  tips  callused over and the hibiscus  winterize themselves.  Some received at least 8 hours of sun a day  over winter but yet they still shut down and winterized. 
I gave my hibiscus minimal care this winter.    I pretty much did nothing except for water  and provide humidity of 30-40%.  Best I could do without window condensation on windows or wood frames.
No TLC, no showers, no folliar feeding,  but yet this was the best they ever looked over winter and I  did not get the usual fertilizer burn.   

While most of my hibiscus lacked care,   I put a lot of time an energy into an indoor hospital garden where I used hydroponics to bring back 2  dying or dormant hibiscus Infrared and Dark Matter.
For this  type of hydro I'm using Charlies live soil.
That's right Charlies super soil is awesome for hydro! 
I keep the  soil  always 100% soaking wet all the time.    It is a closed, recirculating system in which i always keep the soil super soaking wet all the time.    The wetter the better.  Never ever letting anything dry up.   It's like a  DWC (deep water culture) hydro set up except I'm using super soil in the reservoir instead of 100% water.   

I spent all winter learning hydroponics, pH and everything that goes with it and realized that oxygen is really really really really really important!     
Infrared went dormant for 15 months and dropped every single bud it ever grew.
I could not get this thing to grow at all or open a flower.  I could not get any buds to mature and open flowers in 15 months part in greenhouse conditions.  The roots in the  4" pot were a joke or not much at all. 
During the 1st 60 days of hydro soil,  I didn't use any fertilizer at all, except for the organics  Charlie's soil. 
The recirculated  water ranged from 2000ppm -2500pm just from the soil no addtional fertilizer.  The PPM has  come down after a few months of water changes.
I'm using Charlie's soil as my media  in hydroponics.   
For the purpose  of the experiment I stopped all HVH fertilzer as the hibiscus  only had the organics in the soil as a food source for 60 days while I monitored their progress.   
I now have the hydro soil hibiscus  stabilized  on a  fertilizer designed for a recirculating and high oxygen systems.     Late March I starting using Charlies Booster to drive the plants in hydro.   They were doing well but now the booster is really making the buds pop out and drive the plant.
I put alot of time into this project and at the same time I was forgetting and lacking care to my regular  soil hibiscus.   Or it was so late at night that I was to tired to water my soil hibiscus and care for them and would forget in the morning.


FYI at the bottom of this 1 gal system, I pre dilled a hole  and plugged it with a rubber stopper for easy water changes. 
In this 1 gal system, in addition to the soil being soaking wet, there is about a pint or less  of water always recirculating in the soil bubbling away. 
 
Every 1-3 weeks I drain the water and sometimes flush the system then refill it with fresh nutrient water that is set to a pH of 5.5.
I don't mess with pH that much because the soil controls it for me so far.
In the next coming months,  I will write a topic about  hydro soil with O2 enrichment and show you guys what I'm doing, how it works, set up, and how you can grow hibiscus in soil but at the speed and size of hydroponics. 
I'm making this up as i go and mapping it all out now.

The flowers are huge and there is ton of water in the tissue.  Thick crispy leaves.   
No bugs because the soil saturated.
How I'm able to grow a hibiscus in 100% soaking wet soil is because I'm running air into the soil.   24/7 bubbles (air) being gently pumped into the soil allows the water to stay fresh not allowing pathogens to take over.   I can achieve 25-26% oxygen at the roots this way by theory. 
I will stop here and continue with another  thread someday. 
Eventually I will try Special Blend with hydro soil but for now I don't want that variable in the experiment.    Here are a couple flowers from the winter.
Some of the leaves are still distorted on Infrared.    The plant is still trying to come out of a  15 month long dark vegetative nightmare.     
It has been in hydro soil since end of Nov.  2017.
   

[Kyle]

Every time I looked at this 1 Pink Panther bloom it was different just depending on the light. 

[Kyle]

Finally able to get some hibiscus back in my porch.
When it gets really cold outside the gas stove runs all the time and dries the room out so I don't bother keeping them in the porch over winter.  Heat isn't the problem.    The problem is 10-15% humidity and  red hot rockwool acting as ambers putting out a ridiculous amount of infrared radiation on the plants.   They will tolerate it but it's best they come inside the house over winter and help keep the  humidity up for me.




 

[Charlie]

Very interesting and promising, Kyle. Your experiments with hydroponic stye growing are well worth while. There was a time I did hydroponic growing in our greenhouse and learned a lot in the process. Ultimately, we did not go down that road because the production plants we ship to people needed to be grown in the normal way so that when they arrive with the customer it is not too much of a readjustment for them. Still, really cool that you are giving it a go.

By the way, Cindy asked me to mention to you that she would like to work with you on a photo spread later this year of your plants and flowers for our website page "World-wide Hibiscus Gardens". She's been admiring Facebook photos for some time.

Charles

[Charlie]

I just had a look at the forum stats, Kyle. Amazingly, this past month of March had the highest page views the forum has ever had, with over 267,000 pages opened in one month. Thanks for posting new photos for our visitors to enjoy!

[Kyle]

I also forgot to mention, I started using some new additives last Sept and over the winter.   These are not your ordinary additives.   They are engineered  with a specific purpose under very smart chemist/gardeners.  These additives  also  contain ultra high  amount of microbes and all the  additives I use favor higher ratio of K. 
I will talk about these additives more in another Topic as I'm still observing how they work in a full season with hibiscus.    These are special additives derived from compost and kelp tea concentrates made in a lab from the best possible raw materials.   Unfortunately the company does not share what  raw materials that they use or what's in there products.   
I do correspond with the  Product Specialist from the company as he has given me some inside information about the additives so I have a better understanding of how they work and what they do.  I'm also trying an enzyme additive that is designed to transfer energy and sugars from the leaves to the flowers.   
 There is  another high tech additive that I started using  that contains incomplete molecules of P and K  that act like magnets where unwanted salts get pulled from the roots, out of the soil, or building up in the drip system.   It is designed for tap water and or  hard water to reduce scale as well.   This  special additive prevents fertilizer burn because and  has the ability to remove unwanted salts by chemistry. 
   This was 1 of the reasons why I didn't promote runoff this past winter, along with being lazy.
Flushing now is a thing of the past,  I can be more aggressive since I don't need to worry about salt build up and fertilizer burn.    If you like to keep your plants evenly wet this is for you!
The name of this additive is called " Drip Clean"  by House & Garden.   
It does several things, and I will not garden unless this is in my nutrient water for everything i grow.
All you do is add .4mL of Drip Clean per gal of water.   That's it!
Yes   that is . 4 mL per gal of water.   
The 1st time you use it don't use fertilizer or feed light  because it could release excessive salts from the soil, roots, or drip system,  and  your plant could get a burst of energy the 1st time you use it.
I didn't notice anything like but it was end of my season. 
 
 Space Oddity's 1st of 2018.