Hidden Valley Hibiscus Forum

I just wanted to thank you all for all of the lovely photos you have been posting.  I have been growing hibiscus for only about a year and a half now.  I have many of the “garden store” variety hibiscus cultivars like Erin Rachel, Crown of Bohemia, and Kona.  I recently found the HVH website (January) and just joined the forum. I wanted to share some of the blooms I have gotten from the HVH hibiscus cultivars.  I live in Richmond in the Bay Area of California, and our year has been very cool.  Mornings are usually foggy until 12 or 1pm, with sun the rest of the day, and temperatures rarely above 70 or 75.  (Until this last weekend which was a scorcher!) So many of the hibiscus cultivars were slow to start off, but flowers have averaged 4-7 days open!  Some of the photos are from earlier in the year or August, I had planned to post last week, but temperatures jumped from 60s to 107 last weekend and required lots of plant and cat TLC.

The Georgia Thunder flower lasted 5 days even in our heatwave.

One last set for today (I have more but the file size is too large at the moment).  Sorry for my complete awkwardness at the posting, I will improve as I go, promise!
Island Queen (purchased as a 6 inch pot) has been blooming constantly with huge flowers.  Space Oddity has produced 3 lovely HUGE blooms as a tiny baby plant, so impressive!

Other flowers of both Aztec Giant and Cosmic Gold, like the Space Oddity they are producing massive blooms for such tiny baby plants!  

One final post of Wild Rose earlier in August and a Got Your Back that suffered through 107 degree heat!

Welcome to the forum Dr Rebecca! So glad you have found the HVH website and now have some of their beautiful exotic hibiscus to grow and enjoy. We have a growing community of growers in the Bay Area and surrounding locations so you are definitely not alone. There is even a Northern California Hibiscus Society on Facebook now as well where you can connect with local growers and trade info on how to improve your growing techniques.

Your plants look great and a joy to view your photos!

Farmer D

We definitely had the same scorching heat wave here in Southern California too at the beginning of the month. Four straight days with temps over 100F producing lots of yellow leaves but nothing new and usually this time of year we get our hottest weather. At least this heatwave was rather humid so the plants had some moisture to work with.

The unusual part was seeing San Francisco hotter than we were - I believe that was an all time daily high for them

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Note the grey color band on Midnight Tryst. This was after our big heatwave so that is what the hot temps did to this CV. It is interesting how some CVs will get darker and more splashed when hot weather and others will get lighter. I guess MT gets lighter. A perfect example of one that got darker is Blackberry Truffle - that is the darkest bloom I have had on it.

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A few blooms from this week.

Welcome, Dr. Rebecca - love your Island Queen blooms! Looking forward to seeing more of your blooms down the road.

Darren - Besides your amazing bloom photos I always look forward to when you post views from your hibiscus dream yard as I love seeing your progression/additions.  Whenever I eventually make it to your area of Cali I HAVE to stop by and see it with my own eyes!  Have you significantly pruned back your Acapulco Gold?  I recall it being your biggest CV and bloomer, but perhaps other CV's have now caught up?

Kyle - Agree 100% that its great being able to compare how CV's grow across the country. Hope you are doing well!

Tarzan started off slow for me when I brought it back out this Spring...not anymore!

One more Tarzan, A reflexed Appassionata that  looked to me like butterfly wings, Blue Ballerina, Black Dragon, and some nice blooms of Belle du Jour.

Belle du Jour, Bridal Path, Creme de Cacao with Bright Hope, Living Legend & Rainbow Christie.

Love Sonnet (day 1 & 2), Mirage, River Styx & My Blue Heaven with Tahitian Princess and Acapulco Gold in the background.

Midnight Tryst (day 1 & 2), Prosperity & Magic Crystal, Sea of Tranquility, Thunderhead (day 1 & 2 blooms).

Valentines Day & Belle, Velvet Illusion, Wow Factor & Tahitian Magenta Double Star & Yoda.

Various HVH blooms from my garden - thanks as always Cindy & Charlie for another wonderful summer of blooms!

Good looking blooms Rebecca!

Dave I am impressed - some real beauties there with Tarzan leading the way! Keep them coming...

Glad you like the yard shots - it is a good perspective for me to see if I am getting the overall look that pleases one's eye. Getting there...

Good memory on Acapulco Gold - it got so big it was crowding out all it's neighbors so I pruned it back. The growth it got after the pruning was a lot of floppy branches that just drooped down. So I was forced to prune it a second time and that pruning was quite severe. I took what was once a 7 foot plant down to 2 feet. So it has been a delayed regrowth process. It is blooming nicely again with 4 to 5 again but I am still not getting the same results as before. My thinking on this is that AG is such a super vigorous plant that it needs tons of room and when it doesn't get it it is a bit fussy. I tried to grow a couple in pots and I saw the same sort of thing over time.

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Got a bit of rain yesterday, made lots of the blooms really pop.

Everyone's flowers photos are so amazing!

My first blooms off Clair de Lune!  SO pretty, gorgeous pinks and lavenders.  My Russian Heather always gives darkly colored blooms. 

Rebecca your blooms are looking great! Some top notch beauties!

Yes we got some rain too this morning - about 10 minutes worth - must have been the left overs from what you got...

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Heartache is in my top 5 - here is what it does throughout the day so you can see how pretty the fade is

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Weep No More is one that is hard to find a favorite photo - it is constantly changing it's look throughout the day. Lots going on with this one

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Another of my top 5 favorites CVs - Monet's Palette has some incredible colors, great form and the blooms are always big

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1st bloom for Lady Liberty

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Nefertiti doing her thing & BR twins

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Lovely blooms everyone!

First blooms off my Splash and Energy Blast plants!  Cosmic Gold continues to put out gorgeous flowers.  Clair de Lune is just amazing, massive and long lasting blue-yellow-pink flowers! 

You have great looking blooms Rebecca! Glad you are enjoying them so much!!! Keep posting those photos.

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Welcome Dr. Rebecca nice Space Oddity you have.

I been real busy lately but now that baseball season is over for us have some time to post some pictures.
Let me start by saying this has been 1 heck of a roller  coaster year for weather. 
Mild warm winter turned cold and snowed through April as winter dragged on forever.
June normal heavy rain late.
July no rain at all 90's
August was  coldest Aug. ever in Cleveland's history.
Sept was hottest and driest Sept ever in Cle.   I think we had 6 or 7 days of 90+ temps and no rain at all.

I have had my Pinot Noir for a couple years always does well.  Gradually potted up as needed.
Every fall she gets a major hard prune and takes off early spring and blooms spring-fall over and over.
 
Fall 2016 was the 1st year I did not hard prune Pinot Noir.  Did the usual fall flushing and bug blasting before returning has a houseplant.
I trimmed 1 branch over summer and 1 branch in Fall no hard prune.
Over winter she got multiple hours of direct sun as a houseplant 60-70's F Temps all winter.
I noticed over winter the bloooms were getting distorted and not always opening.
No pest at all.
By middle of  winter she dropped all of her leaves after they all turned crispy brown, green, and yellow.
I did nothing out of the ordinary fertilized over winter with houseplant formula and cut back a little bit as I started to see burned leaves.
By the end of winter she was all bare sticks but with lots of nodes and looked promising for summer. 
She stayed dormant from Feb-July.   Not even Veg leaves.  Did nothing at all, no growth no branching. 
I also used Wake Up Spray to get her going but didn't seem to do much.
When the weather warmed up end of May, she went outside where she got lots of direct morning sun, and late afternoon through all  evening direct sun.   Space Oddity and Pink Panther loved it. 
Finally in July I started to see some new growth as she started to take off.
She stayed in veg until Sept.   

August had turned so cool I brought her inside my covered porch until next year.
By the end of Aug. the bush looked great no sign of trouble with many blooms on the way.
The 1st  blooms started out as winter colors since it was so cool in Aug outside.
As Sept. heated up, summer colors arrived but as it became 100F in my porch the blooms turned very pail. 
By the end of Sept. into Oct  bi color seems to be getting back to normal but blooms still distorted, small, and 1 day flowers that dry up very fast.   Bush and foliage look really good though but dropping 50% of buds like some of my other CV have been doing since winter.
Here are some photos of flowers in about 1 months time.
Feeding was very consistent with Special Blend and Booster just like all my other hibiscus all summer.
She back on Houseplant Formula since saucer being used or water drains all over the floor.

The pictures continue into Oct Photos of the Day.

Kyle





 
 

All of my hibiscus have been a houseplant at some point or still are.    They all start off as houseplants and gradually work their way outside if they can handle the direct sun or if I like what the blooms look like outside.  

Out of all my CV's the Best Houseplant Award goes to..... Wow Factor!

Over the years my Wow Factor was a houseplant, an outdoor plant, a  covered porch plant, and for the last year it's been a houseplant and will always be a houseplant forever now.
Less is more.   No direct sun is best for my situation.        
Not even direct sun that is filtered through windows, screens, or greenhouse material.  
The bush is so big inside my home I have Plant Yo-Yo's holding up the branches from the ceiling so the bush doesn't fall over.  
I don't have enough light inside my home to take photos inside with my camera.  
My camera doesn't show true colors in direct sun with certain blue and purples.

The bi colors of green and magenta show up only in certain conditions.
Those conditions are whatever it is inside my home.  
If you count the bleed and eye as 2 colors I count 6 colors on the houseplant blooms.
Just outside the bleed the red mixes with the blue body and forms the bi color magenta.
The blue body blends in with the underlying yellow edge to form the bi color green.
I don't usually see the bi colors until later in the day when the pink fades just enough.

The bottom photo bloom made it through day 4 but quickly closed at sunset. 
The blooms don't usually last 4 days. 

Close up of the bi color bleed.