Hidden Valley Hibiscus Forum

Blue Ballerina is one of the most notable miniature flowers (always under 5 inches) that we grow. The stand out qualities that we like about it are how much it blooms and particularly the shade of darker blue color of the blooms. We have not grown or seen another variety with this color of blue. The plant is compact with many stems, and since each stem is capable of producing flowers Blue Ballerina is rarely without one or more once it reaches a mature size. It also sets seeds, which makes further hybridizing with Blue Ballerina an attractive idea.

Someone may want to comment about the effects of proper fertilizer on Blue Ballerina color, as this has been reported to have interesting and worthwhile results.

Dreamin' blue hibiscus this morning,

Charlie

Hi, Art,

The difference is fantastic! 

I can't wait to get one ! i really love the color of this cultivar

I should be getting mine either today or tomorrow !  I could not help my self from buying it  ;D

Kerry,

You will love it!  It is a big bloomer its too bad the flowers dont last longer.  AND best of all its a seed setter :)

I got it already ! YES !    no I need to wait till it blooms  :D

Hi Kerry,

If the Blue Ballerina you have now is the one I'm thinking it was, there is a good example of branching in that plant. If you look at it you should be able to see where the main stem was pinched about a month ago. It will be calloused over now but you can still see where it was. But now, look at what is happening - I counted 8 or so breaks where new stems are growing out of the main stem. This is why we pinch and prune. Not all varieties react to pinching with this many new stems but Blue Ballerina is good about branching. All those small new side stems will rapidly grow and most will bloom this summer. The more branches, the more flowers. Hurray!

Charlie

For me blue ballerina also branches very well.  I bought her last year on her first online appearance :)  I got some other 4' pot sized plants earlier this year (Bonnie Lass and LL) that were only one stem, so I pinched the top and now I see an explosion of growth!  LL has at least 5 nodes that I hope will turn into branches, and Bonnie Lass has at least three.  I think I will start pinching the tips when I get the 4' size pots as a standard now.  I dont know if this is true for everyone, but I find that there is a lag period in growth after I transplant my baby plants into a bigger pot size.  I might as well use this lag period to get more branches because I have significant new growth after about a month on the pinched guys, which is around the same time I start to get rapid growth on the unpinched.   The most significant example of this is when I was impatient and bought a 'Black Dragon" from another online source, when I received the plant in the mail it looked like a stick with four leaves on top, about 7 inches tall, and was the most pathetic specimen I have seen.  Needless to say I was pretty disappointed.  I threw the plant in a pot and pretty much forgot about it, and just figured I would get another one from HVH when they are in stock.  I decided to pinch the top of this 'stick' about two months ago and wow what a change! The whole stem is leafing out I see several branches forming!  Perhaps this plant isnt lost afterall :D  I love my 6' pot size plants, but I really enjoy the 4' because I get a bigger sense of accomplishment when I have a big beautiful plant that I grew from a small un-extraordinary piece of wood.  I attached a picture of my 'Black Dragon' I just wish I had a before picture :P

Yes ths most be the same plant you speak of. It has so many new branches growing at the bottom  :D

She bloomed today :) and I crossed her to belle du jour

Good luck with your cross I hope you get some seeds !

I can not wait for mine to get bigger I am saving up some $$$ to buy a few more CV's then I will stop buying before I run out of room lol

Did you cross Belle and Blue Ballerina both ways? Both set seeds so the odds of getting the cross are doubled. One of the challenges with blues is getting larger flower size into them, which Belle could do.

Charlie

I crossed her one way, because Belle was a second day bloom and I just used her pollen.  Hopefully she was pollinated by gator pride :)

It finally bloomed for me today. I have to say this is probably the CUTEST hibiscus I have seen yet. So small and perfect ! I just love it so much. Now I can't wait for this cv to get bigger and have bush full of blooms.
I will post picture in a few mins

(http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/kalibobs/blueballerina.jpg)

I know what you mean about Blue Ballerina, Kerry.  It always strikes me the same way! It's such a formal little thing, with such perfect form, dark red eye, pure white ring, perfectly formed blue petals. It's a true miniature. :-)

I'm glad you like it so much too! 
Cindy

Charlie how would your rate this CV as far as growth ? I only ask because I am trying to figure out if mine is growing slow due to it being in self watering pot. Depending on your answer I will either keep it in the pot or put it in a regular pot.  It has been growing super super slow for me but its budding now. It wont grow branches either just small shoots then blooms

Kerry,

   My BB is a medium to slow grower.  Could it be that your plant is putting most of its energy into budding, rather than growing branches? 

   I remember a discussion about picking off buds as they appear to encourage more vegetative growth.  Maybe you should try that?

Jordan

What I've observed is that Blue Ballerina responds to heat or cold more than some others. In hot conditions it grows with above average vigor and particularly branches well. In milder conditions it slows way down. If this holds for your plant you should see a lot more growth in the July to October period this year.

Jordan's idea about pinching buds to encourage growth is not something I normally do (unless a plant seems stuck for some reason and is not growing at all but is making buds) but I know another commercial grower who did this routinely and thought it helped.

Charlie

Thanks Charlie I will bring BB to my aunts house in front of a sunny window and let it get bigger.

By some sort of a mistake, I pruned my Blue Ballerina too much this spring, taking off all the branches but the trunk. To my surpise, it has branched into 5 new branches, and from April to now they are all about 40 cm long. This is an excellent growth this season (two year old plant). Last year, it seemed to be a slow grower.

Now, I am very curious to see what the bush will look like next season, when I prune all those 5 branches.

I agree Nina that BB is an interesting grower to say the least.  It starts off pretty slow, then explodes into growth blooming like crazy.  I bet next year you will have a very full bush :)

The 6 inch pots behave similarly - slow start and then suddenly they shoot up and branch out and get almost too big to ship in 6 inch pots!

Charlie

Charlie will you be having any more this season ? I want to replace mine that died

Yes, there are some Blue Ballerina that were just potted up to 4 inch size. They need time to root through the pot and develop more healthy top growth but perhaps by the end of October a few small ones can ship. Most of them will ship in spring as much bigger 4 inch plants with several branches already started.

Charlie

I think I need one to grow out more so If I do happen to get one I will see if you guys can ship it in spring.  Out of all the CV's I have only 2 of them are doing poorly with my lights.

 My beautiful Blue Ballerina :)

(http://i56.tinypic.com/33acsqo.jpg)

Laural, its good to see you are adding photos to the cultivar pages instead of all going into photos of the day pages. I've been planning to move some photos from the older Photos of the Day pages into the cultivar pages but its a slow job and I've not given it high priority. Thanks for adding them.

Charlie

I've often been wondering how we should deal with that.  Maybe when we post photos, we should post them in both the blooms of the day and the cv's thread.

Double posting is fine with me. I'm thinking about the people who come to the forum and want to check out info and photos of specific varieties. They can use the search function to find the cv wherever it might be mentioned but it would be good to have as many photos as possible in the variety's own thread, too.

Charlie

Message from Nina in another topic, reposted here.

Blue Ballerina is a nice plant and very floriferous. I really like a lot BB, here is my 2 year old plant, without one big branch that I pruned for propagation. I would really like to have some more plants like this.

Nina

Hello everyone  :)  Blue Ballerina February 2011.

(http://i53.tinypic.com/9awm8l.jpg)

Thats very very nice Laural.

WOW what a dark bloom Laural!  Very pretty, thanks for sharing! 

stunning color, laural.

louis

Nice one, Laural. Where do you live?

Charlie

Laural, do you know Petar?

It's been said here many times before, but Blue Ballerina really is a great indoor bloomer.  This winter in NJ it has been the most consistent indoor bloomer I've had by far that isn't under artificial lighting.  I've also found this cv to be one of the first to bounce back with blooms after a spider mite attack. The color variations indoors this winter have been interesting too as you will see below.  In just 2 days apart I had a "pink" ballerina bloom, followed by a more usual purplish-blue ballerina bloom.

It seems with each bloom the colors on my BB seem to change a bit.  While I love BIG flowers, the mini's are awesome in their own right.

Charlie, I've lost both of my Blue Ballerinas. Will you have any available soon?

Hi Kristin,

Nice to hear from you!

We had some good Blue Ballerinas earlier this spring but it looks like we are out now. We'll be doing new inventories for the updates in June and July soon, and might find more then but I just don't know at this time. You can also do a wish list on the forum - Cindy really tries to take care of them first.

Charlie

Thanks Charlie. I had to make a few cuts in the number of plants I have. They got too big! My friends appreciated it tho.... However, my Blue Ballerina was highly protected, along with Cindy's Heart, Laguna Starlight, Little Mermaid, Saffron....... But I will update my wishlist!

Blue Ballerina is growing in well, compact, and always blooming!
 

Here are two winter blooms from my Blue Ballerina.