Do you Grow Hibiscus in the House too?

[Charlie]

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

[helixturnhelix]

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

[Charlie]

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

[helixturnhelix]

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

[Cindy]

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

[helixturnhelix]

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!

[Brenden]

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....

[Kyle]

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

[Charlie]

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

[Brenden]

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.

[Brenden]

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

[Charlie]

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

[Brenden]

Here we are.