farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 5573
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #60 on: March 09, 2012, 09:53:16 PM » |
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A few more....David W I'm still stuck on that Vin Beaujolais shot you posted. That is my dream bloom there! Didn't know it could look that incredible!!!
Farmer D
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #61 on: March 10, 2012, 05:42:40 AM » |
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Darren I think the photo below is the one you mean, strange thing is it wasn't till I saw your bush that I decided to try and do something different with it, up until then it was struggling out in the garden and I was close to getting rid of it. After I re-potted and pruned it I put it in a spot that gets about half an hour of direct sun and even that is late afternoon sun which is much weaker, I have not had any wonderfull blooms since but the bush is now developing nicely and I am sure I will.
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David.
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Ernest
Posts: 1704
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« Reply #62 on: March 10, 2012, 04:28:01 PM » |
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Deb, those are some beautiful blooms. Happy house hunting. Don't forget to tell the realtor that you'll only look at houses with lots of south facing windows.
Darren, I'm afraid my outdoor plants can't hold a candle to yours. My best blooms are still on the few potted plants that I bring in each night. My outdoor plants don't seem to like the low 40s temps and the frequent Santa Ana winds we have had this winter. Lots of dropped buds and smaller blooms that are reluctant openers. Creole Lady and a second day Black Dream below are both in pots. I'm in 100% agreement with your assessment of David's Vin Beaujolais.
Erny
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 5573
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #63 on: March 10, 2012, 06:40:02 PM » |
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Darren, I'm afraid my outdoor plants can't hold a candle to yours. My best blooms are still on the few potted plants that I bring in each night. My outdoor plants don't seem to like the low 40s temps and the frequent Santa Ana winds we have had this winter. Lots of dropped buds and smaller blooms that are reluctant openers. Creole Lady and a second day Black Dream below are both in pots. I'm in 100% agreement with your assessment of David's Vin Beaujolais.
Erny
I guess I'm being too tough on my plants. Even though it's winter I have high expectations for them. What I've learned so far this winter is that if you have a lot of energy momentum built up in your plants from summer/fall it can really carry a long way thru winter. With the addition of frequent Supernova spraying it seems to be enough for all of my plants to not shut down at all. Even my naked Bonnie Lass has a lots of baby leaves popping out all over. My newest venture is changing out the soil on most of my 70+ plants to something with perlite (been using Fox Farms so far). I am trying to better align the watering of my non-hibiscus landscaping with with that of the hibs. Without proper drainage I can't water my hibs as much and then the rest of my landscaping starts to suffer. Plus seeing the results that David W has achieved once he switched over to a perlite mix really hints at the importance there. It's amazing though at how each planter is so different I can't depend on what works in one does in another... Farmer D
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #64 on: March 11, 2012, 02:14:22 PM » |
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My newest venture is changing out the soil on most of my 70+ plants to something with perlite (been using Fox Farms so far). I am trying to better align the watering of my non-hibiscus landscaping with with that of the hibs. Without proper drainage I can't water my hibs as much and then the rest of my landscaping starts to suffer. Plus seeing the results that David W has achieved once he switched over to a perlite mix really hints at the importance there. It's amazing though at how each planter is so different I can't depend on what works in one does in another...
Farmer D [/quote]
Darren I am a little shocked to read the above, surely you are not going to alter the soil mix in the ground, or have you got 70+ plants in pots? True I have had some good results in my pots but they don't hold a candle to yours in the ground, the likes of your Rainbow Sherbert Cof Fire and Black Dragon and especially Valentines Day are some sort of Botanical miracles, most of us use Booster HVH fert and Supernova but none of us come close to your size and bud count, so it has to be the fact they are in the ground and what's in the ground that's helping you to achieve these stunning results, I think messing with it could be a hell of a risk for you [and us who so enjoy seeing them haha].
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David.
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #65 on: March 11, 2012, 07:51:12 PM » |
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I have started cutting a few of my blooms as soon as they open, then I place them on the cv's at the front of the garden so I can view them better, that's one advantage I suppose of knowing your only going to get a 1 day bloom, mind you the blooms are about half the size they where 6 weeks ago. Had a nice Bridal Path today, the bush just keeps getting bigger, I normaly prune about now but so far no need with BP.
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David.
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Charlie
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« Reply #66 on: March 12, 2012, 05:24:24 AM » |
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Beautiful, David. I've always wanted to see Bridal Path growing naturally with minimal pruning.
Good points you raised with Darren. I look forward to hearing more details about what he is doing and how it's going.
Charlie
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Doll
Posts: 1036
Houston, Texas
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« Reply #67 on: March 12, 2012, 02:44:27 PM » |
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First Jungle Fire bloom and a 2nd day Sun Shower
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I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could.
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #68 on: March 12, 2012, 03:38:00 PM » |
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Very nice John, particularly that Jungle Fire, a beuty and very special.
PS. Thanks for your help and I sorted out my seedling problem, pretty dumb really, Al's it was that being so frightened to get the seeds to wet I had the mix to dry, and then it was not compact enough to support the stem.
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David.
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Doll
Posts: 1036
Houston, Texas
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« Reply #69 on: March 12, 2012, 03:43:31 PM » |
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David, I'm glad you solved the problem with your seedlings. The biggest problem I have is that the squirrels try to dig them up all the time. I finally resorted to cutting up some bamboo sticks and putting them around the edges of the pot. Works quite well.
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I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could.
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Louis
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« Reply #70 on: March 12, 2012, 05:34:12 PM » |
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Hi everyone, a new hybrid opened today, its a cross between Moonstruck X June's Joy. This is the first bloom and its stunning. Its a biggie again with an 8 inch bloom. the color on the photos, in the shade are very accurate. the large throat is deep scarlet and the outer petals are orange - salmon. as you can see the bush is nice. i have not trimmed it yet, wanted to see the blooms first. charlie, what do you think of this one? sorry the photos are so large, wanted to show the details. Louis    
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 5573
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #71 on: March 12, 2012, 07:08:21 PM » |
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Louis that is a stunner, the colors are just gorgeous! Thank you for sharing and congratulations. What a way to finish off winter!!
John I like that Jungle Fire bloom - it has a lot of personality. How was all the rain lately?
Here is my latest installment of pics which are "outdoor winter specials". Rather poor quality blooms but hey this might be about the low point for my plants. Interestingly I've observed that quite a few of my plants are yellowing a lot of their leaves all of a sudden so I wonder if it is in preparation for spring growth or further winter challenges? I carefully observe many other plants and trees around here and see if I can find any correlation with them and the hibs. An example would be my citrus trees just started all of their spring growth and as a result are starting to shed last year's leaves? Could it be some of the hibs kind of do the same ? I know they're not supposed to lose their leaves much but in the semi-arid outdoors maybe unexpected things can occur...
Farmer D
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farmer d
Farmer D
Posts: 5573
Hollywood, CA
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« Reply #72 on: March 12, 2012, 08:37:33 PM » |
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Darren I am a little shocked to read the above, surely you are not going to alter the soil mix in the ground, or have you got 70+ plants in pots? True I have had some good results in my pots but they don't hold a candle to yours in the ground, the likes of your Rainbow Sherbert Cof Fire and Black Dragon and especially Valentines Day are some sort of Botanical miracles, most of us use Booster HVH fert and Supernova but none of us come close to your size and bud count, so it has to be the fact they are in the ground and what's in the ground that's helping you to achieve these stunning results, I think messing with it could be a hell of a risk for you [and us who so enjoy seeing them haha].
David I hear your concerns. I have been contemplating this for well over a year. When I first decided to get exotic hibiscus I didn't know anything at all about them. At least I had the foresight to condition my super wet clay soil before hand. Unfortunately I didn't understand the need for something like perlite to promote drainage and I guess a little room in the soil so it can breathe and not be so packed. If I only had known back in the beginning but hey that is part of coming down the learning curve. This really hit home when I read your posts about adding perlite to your soil mix being the game changer for your plants. Now I'm always talking about how each planter here is like a totally different environment and man it is so true. My original organic planting mix with no perlite works well in my west facing planter. But for my south, north, and most of my backyard so far it is creating issues. The new growth on most of my cvs comes out very pale green or yellow and the blooms lack color. This also really retards their growth. Furthermore I recently dug up several plants to observe their root systems and it was really interesting. The root ball with the organic soil was super wet but directly around my dug out holes was bone dry (holes being dug back when I first planted them). When clay gets bone dry it is like cement and no roots will penetrate it. So I have severely limited root systems with overly wet root balls. This would for example explain why my Cosmic Gold has done nothing in over a year yet I hear what a quick grower it is. So I need a soil that will let the water drain letting me soak the entire planter and keep the clay wet and penetrable without the roots getting water logged. Also I am making the holes I dig for each plant much bigger now that I see how constraining the dry clay has been. So I pretty quickly figured out last year that my current soil retains water too much and really reduced the watering of my hibs even during the peak of summer and that worked really well. You'd be amazed at how little I was watering them. Basically just when I fed them a couple times a week. The flip side to this was the rest of my property started drying out a lot even with the mild summer we had last year. I have sprinkler systems installed everywhere and am committed to using them for the most part. I can't take them out and I did install a couple of drip lines but the connections for them were sprinkler heads so further drying out of all my landscaping plants ensued. I have done 20 plants so far with three having severe shock issues (Candy, Venetian Brick and Heavy Metal – HM had a broken pipe below it that flooded the daylights out of it so tough going there). The rest seemed to have handled it fine. I’m really curious to see what is going on with the root systems of my big ones like COF, FF, Bonnie Lass and RS. The soil around those gets the most sun and heat each day and seems rock hard yet they grew the most. I’m guessing that the roots found their way to the soil underneath my grass which is close to them. I don't know if I'll have another mild summer like the last and if not I could see some really serious problems (have over 10 fruit trees and lots of other stuff too). My plum tree shocked me with how horrible it did - even got a disease in it's weakened state. With a lot of tlc and attentive watering it has started to bounce back. So there you have it. This has been a long time coming but I’m open to any and all suggestions and input from you all. Farmer D
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #73 on: March 12, 2012, 10:43:11 PM » |
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Wow!! Darren, that is a mammoth task so the best of luck. I think what frightened me when I read it is the fact you will be disturbing the roots, whenever I have to do this and I don't mean just re-potting, more where the roots have had to be disturbed and come out the pot I have had problems,but if you have done 20 already and been successful well done. I can certainly understand you wanting to change something if you are not happy, I think we are similar in that we want to give our plants the best possible chance and ''ok'' is not good enough, what percentage Perlite are using in your mix, I now use 25% but of course mine is in a pot and not in the ground, truth is I have never heard or read of anyone using Perlite directly in the ground but I see no reason why not.
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David.
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davidwood
David In Nha Trang Vietnam
Posts: 1054
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« Reply #74 on: March 12, 2012, 10:49:23 PM » |
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Nice suprise for me today was my Acapulco Gold, very hot the last few days so never expected a show like this. In the second photo I have brought the pot in out of the sun, hopefully I will be able to enjoy the lovely blooms longer.
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David.
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