Hidden Valley Hibiscus Forum

Growing hibiscus as houseplants is really important to me. I'm a mountain girl from the cold north, and have always had to have my gardens inside my house. Now that I'm living in warm San Diego, I have a beautiful hibiscus garden outside, but I still can't live in an empty, non-green, non-flowering house! So now I have hibiscus both inside and outside.   

I'm still learning and always improving my indoor hibiscus growing techniques. So if you grow hibiscus inside, come join me and let's pool our information, share pictures, and help each other. Ask questions, give answers, make suggestions, show off pictures, cry over lost hibiscus, and come join this discussion! All indoor hibiscus lovers are welcome!!!!!!!!! :D

Cindy

HI, Cindy, and others,

From time to time I put some plants in my living room, in front of the south window. They very quickly get spider mites. When I spray them  with water several times a day, or shower them a few times a week,  I can control the infection, but all in all, spider mites are such a nuisance in house conditions, because both regular spraying and showering are so tiring.
I have found out that Ross Estey is rather good in resisting spider mites, so this is the only one I have in the house now. I plan to put a few more in a week, to make them bloom earlier in spring. Since I suppose I will have spiders invasion very soon, a few questions:

- when I spray with acaricide, is it enough to spray the up side of the leaves, or one should spray the down side, too?
- is neem oil efficient against spider mites?
- any other known "domestic" and non toxic for humans substance against spider mites?

Hi Nina,

Spider mites are the one bug that love living in the house, and I agree that they are a real pain. I've found several ways to treat them, each has pros and cons:

DROWNING SPIDER MITES:
- Lay all your plants on their sides, pots and all, in a bathtub.
- Fill the tub with water that is 110 degrees F (43 C). Be careful that it does not go above that temperature though!
- Fill the tub until all the plants are covered, and weight the plants down with a towel or oven rack if you need to to make sure all parts of all plants are submerged in the water.
- Leave the plants in the water for 10 minutes. Set a timer so you don't forget them!  I once left mine in too long and it damaged the plants badly!
- Drain out the water and stand the plants up in the tub until the excess water drains out of the pots.

This is my favorite treatment because I only have to do it ONCE to kill all spider mites and their eggs. It kills every kind of spider mite, even the microscopic ones that can hide in cracks in the bark. BUT you do have to be careful. If the water is too hot or you leave the plants too long, you can damage the plant rather badly.

WASHING OFF SPIDER MITES:
An alternative method is to wash your plants in a shower or under a faucet or hose. But this method will not kill eggs. You will have to repeat it for 3-4 egg cycles (every 5-7 days) to get rid of all the spider mites. The trick is to wash every single millimeter of the plant in a strong stream of water - the top and bottom of every single leaf, branch, stem, and twig.

If you only have a few hibiscus, this method is fine, even though it's more time consuming. But if, like me, you have a house full of hibiscus, it's way too time-consuming.

TREATING SPIDER MITES WITH SPRAYS
Another alternative method is to treat with either a Miticide (like Bayer 3-in-1) or with Horticultural Oil. Both treatments work equally well, in my opinion, and I sometimes use both, alternating one one week and the other the next week.

- Just like the washing method, spraying only kills adult spider mites. It doesn't kill eggs. So you have to repeat it every 5-7 days for 3 or 4 egg-hatching cycles to make sure you get every spider mite.
- The trick with spraying, just like washing, is to spray every millimeter of the plant: tops and bottoms of every single leaf, stem, branch, and twig, as well as the surface of the pot and soil. It takes time to spray this carefully, but you may as well not bother spraying at all if you don't do it this carefully.

One other note - with spider mites, prevention helps a lot. If I bathe every plant I bring into the house BEFORE I put it near my other plants, I save myself a lot of spider mite treatment later. It's hard to make myself follow that rule religiously, but when I do, my plants stay a lot healthier and happier.

These are all the tricks I know so far!  If I come up with any new ones, I'll post them here!

Cindy

Nina wrote:

- when I spray with acaricide, is it enough to spray the up side of the leaves, or one should spray the down side, too?
- is neem oil efficient against spider mites?
- any other known "domestic" and non toxic for humans substance against spider mites?

Hi Nina,

Some miticides claim to be "translaminar" which just means that the pesticide soaks into the leaf and remains active for a couple of weeks. Some take that to mean you can spray the top of the leaf only but it really doesn't work that well. For spider mite control spray everything - top and bottom of leaves, stems, even the surface of the soil.

After much experimenting I concluded that spraying the plants you are going to bring in 3 times in about 10 days before bringing them in works best. Even so...sooner or later you will have to do it again or quickly react to any sign of new mites with spot spraying. Starting with plants as clean as possible does really help.

Neem oil, like all light weight oils, smothers insects, including mites. Neem also has some biochemical activity that might help some with mites especially in the young stages. The Universities here highly recommend horticultural oil sprays for dealing with mites since they are effective and non-toxic. For me they work ok but there is no residual activity and mites return quicker than when using good miticides.

Other non-toxic treatments were covered by Cindy in a previous post. She gives the entire plant a warm water soaking that is very effective at removing mites.  The problem with mites is that they do not eat the plant sap but instead suck the chlorophyl out of plant leaves. So far no one has found a way to make the chlorophyl toxic to the mites the way we can toxify the plant sap with systemic insecticides. All that is left is to wash them off, drown them, or smother them with oil. Or you could try beneficial mites that eat spider mites. I have not tried that but these creatures are available if you want to give it a go!

Let us know how the winter goes and how you treated against mites. Thanks!

Charlie

Hi, Cindy and Charly,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I thought since they suck, maybe the spraying of only the up would be enough...but unfortunately, it is not.

I will surely try drawning. I have already tried that, not with hibiscus but with a badly affected budlea, but it was totally inefficient. I did it in cold water. I will now try it with a 43C water, and see.

Once, I had an interesting experience. I packed a few plants for a friend, and closed the parcel, in the middle of the day. Some time after, I realized that mites are coming out of the parcel, in big quantities, obviously leaving the plant because of the sudden and unexpected darkness.  But of course, that "dark treatment" could not do with the eggs.

Waiting for the systemic miticide!

Cindy reminds me that the hot water dunk should only last for 10 minutes and not be hotter than recommended. Longer or hotter water soaks can cause a lot of defoliation of the current leaves!  She learned that one not long ago  >:( 

If that were to happen the plants don't die, they start leafing out again right away minus the mites so it's not too terrible.

Cindy and Charlie, I have a question about the 10 minute rule, because I'm the kind who will be standing there with a stopwatch  ;)

Do you start timing when the last bit of the plant is submerged? Depending on the size of your tub and plant that means that the underside may be in hot water for quite a while longer.

I suppose I could fill the tub first, which makes it easier to ensure the temperature is correct. Not sure if you know of a reason not to do it this way around?

Cindy's not here now but I will tell her to check the forum and give you her reply since this is her technique. I do believe that she has changed it to cooler water and a longer time now and the time is not that important at the cooler temperature. Better let her explain what she's been doing though.

Charlie

Thank you! It'll be great hearing from her :)

Hi Pachrian,

That's actually a good question, and one of the reasons I switched to using cooler water for longer time.

If you use the hotter water and 10 minutes, I tried to get around that problem by putting all the plants in the tub before starting the water, and running the water warm, then heating it up to the right temp when it was almost full. That way the plants didn't have the hot water until I was ready to start the timer.

The nice thing about using bathwater temps is that I can walk away from it, and it doesn't matter if the plants stay in the tub for 45, 55, or 65 minutes. I can go get some other job done, then come back and they'll all be fine.

One other thing about the hot method is that if you get the water just a few degrees too hot or the plants are in there a few minutes too long, you can lose both buds and leaves. I've never killed a plant with the hot water, but I did once lose all the leaves on a plant (when I forgot about it and left it in the hot water for 45 minutes or so!). I once left a plant in the cooler bathwater temp for 90 minutes, and I didn't lose a single leaf, and only lost 1 bud out of 4 or 5. So the cooler bathwater temp seems much safer to me.

I hope this helps!
Cindy

PS I'm finding that my plants need baths twice a year to stay all clean and sparkly and bug free.

I also have noticed that misting once a week really seems to keep the bugs away as well :)

Are you still using hot water from the tap, Chris?

Charlie

I am still using my new shower head and it has 8 settings , so I put it on the hardest setting and blast away lol !

So far I have not seen any mites yet, I found one last batch of eggs on a seedling ( hiding i dont use the blaster on the smaller ones but now I will)
So far this is easier for me than the bathes because I have too many plants lol. But when I did use the bath Cindy is spot on. I used cooler water and left them in there for 60 mins and no leaf drop or buds. The plants looked very clean and happy after the bath.

Yup Charlie,

Hottest my tap gets and spray the entire plant.  No spider mites since I started doing it :)

I wonder what would happen if i up the temps with my shower head ? :-\

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

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 :)

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

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

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

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!

Curious, my plants,in their 10 gallon  pots, have yet to drain water out the botton, I feel the dirt and it is moist, but not really losing any water, in fact they have weighed 30 pounds since I transplanted them last week. Worries? They haven't grown an inch since getting them a month ago. Just kind of want some closure as to why they hate me. Your houseplants  look beautiful. If I could offer money to my plants to cooperate with  me, I would be broke.
P.S. is it odd,for a single leaf to show signs  of chlorosis, yet no other leaves. My valentine's  day is also drooping with a single leaf....

Brenden,
Your hibiscus look fine.    When the plants get shipped it is very stressful on them.    Mine usually go into a shipping shock and it takes weeks for them to recover.   When they go into shock they begin to shut down and hardly take up any water and they won't grow much during that 1st month until they recover.  I don't fertilize or hardly at all  during that time because the plant is in shut down mode.     When your plants are as small as they are now, they are not going to take up much water because of the size of the bush and it only has a few leaves.    When the roots grow more and the bush gets bigger the plant will take up more water and likely need watered more often.   Until then, be patient because it is going to take some time for the plant to recover and stabilize.   
Kyle

Brenden, did you really mean 10 gallon pots? They don't look that big and I hope they aren't as that is way too big to transplant the 4 inch potted hibiscus into. These appear in the photos to be perhaps 10 inch pots? That's better but it should be no larger than that until the hibiscus is much larger. In fact, hibiscus can live in 10 inch wide pots for many years just fine.

As Kyle said, they look fine now. It does take a while to see new growth because they grow more roots first after transplanting and then the top starts growing like crazy. It also depends on how much sun they get indoors, if its too dark the growth will be slower.

Also, with 4 inch plants we pinch the tops before shipping if they appear to need it and it takes 2 weeks after pinching for new growth to become visible as tiny new shoots. I can't see enough of the plants to tell if they were pinched or not but in any case nothing to worry about yet.

Now, if you did put these in 10 gallon pots you should consider carefully digging them out and replanting in 2 or 3 gallon pots which are typically 8 or 10 inches wide and about the same height.

Are you using saucers under the pots? Do the pots have drainage holes? Ideally they should have both holes and saucers to catch the extra water. As they grow you will need to water enough so a little comes out the holes each time. Otherwise you will build up too much salt in the potting mix over time. It happens slowly so don't worry too much now but sooner or later you will need to have this leaching action so that the fertilizer does not build up too much in the potting mix. Be sure to pour off excess water that collects in the saucer.

One last note: all the plants we ship are accustomed to very small doses of fertilizer every day. We do not recommend that normal feeding stop as they are used to it and it will help them recover from shipping and transplanting. Read the fertilizer section on the Care Sheet that comes with the plants or the Fertilizing pages on the web site.

Charlie

Ok, re potting when I get the chance. And there's no way I can get soil from you anytime  soon again. Is there any way I can still use what is in the current parts? Or do I need to start all over again if I could try it out or something like that just let me know if there's any possibilities to save this stuff I do have an excess amount of unfertilized Spagna moss and perlite available. And yes they have a quarter sized drainage holes. Wonder if the moisture in the soil is what is taking off my plants with these nasty scars in cracks in the leaves boy are they hideous and on one of the plants the new Grove is about the size of a penny and it is cracked already. they are very brittle at the touch. So odd. How a single leaf has chlorosis. and how is single leaf is curling under but none of the others are.  They are getting 2-3 hours of direct from the window  behind the pics. And 4 hours or so of indirect.

Would I be able to dry some of the current soil?

Yes, you can reuse this soil, wet or dry. If the pot size is right for the plants it will dry out soon enough.

When you repot don't try to remove the soil from around the roots. Just dig up the original root ball with whatever soil clings to it and place it in the new pot with as little disturbance of the roots as possible.

After that use only the Houseplant Formula in water whenever you add more water to the pot - probably once or twice a week. Allow the soil to dry between waterings but not completely bone dry.

Then a little benign neglect would work well, and before you know it the plants will have grown to twice their current size and flower buds will start developing before summer is over.

Good luck!

Charlie

Here we are.