The best Bushes !

[Nievesgirl]

Here is my list of CV's That I think are the best Bushes so far !

THE BEST

Rocket's red Glare ( great indoors ) One of my favorites
Simple pleasures
Cinnamon girl
Cranberry Muffin ( ha not bloomed yet but its a super grower )
Creme de cacao ( has not grown yet since I have it in this small pot but I can see it branches when prune)
H. rosa-sinensis

There are a few I have that I still evaluating such as

In the mood
Valentine's day
Haute couture

[Charlie]

Kerry, I would agree with that list although you may find RR Glare gets a little wild on you as it gets bigger.

In The Mood can grow huge - one of mine in a 5 gallon pot is 5 feet tall and at least that big side to side. The blooms are very nice but I haven't gotten a lot of them off this big plant. Maybe this will be the year it will bloom now that it seems to have maxed out its growth for this size pot. There was a bloom on it yesterday so we shall see. Haute Couture is also fairly slow but it should grow into a very nice upright bush several feet tall.

Thanks for the feedback.

Charlie

[Nievesgirl]

Kerry, I would agree with that list although you may find RR Glare gets a little wild on you as it gets bigger.

In The Mood can grow huge - one of mine in a 5 gallon pot is 5 feet tall and at least that big side to side. The blooms are very nice but I haven't gotten a lot of them off this big plant. Maybe this will be the year it will bloom now that it seems to have maxed out its growth for this size pot. There was a bloom on it yesterday so we shall see. Haute Couture is also fairly slow but it should grow into a very nice upright bush several feet tall.

Thanks for the feedback.

Charlie

Yes In the mood has had a shakey start so has passion play. I noticed if you use these thin plastic pots they don't do well. This what happen to simple pleasures. A few months back I was complaining about it lol But not since i repotted it with a thicker plastic pot its doing great. Today I should get my dirt and repot the CV's doing poorly in the better plastic pots.

[helixturnhelix]

In my collection it seems like all of mine have nice bushes

I guess my most well grown CVs:

Burnished Gold
Saffron
Belle du Jour
Dragon's Heart
Bonnie Lass

I want to note that Bonnie Lass makes huge leaves which make it a beautiful plant even if it isnt blooming   Rainbow Sherbet is in the same boat, in fact someone thought that it was a philodendron when I showed my unblooming plant

[davidwood]

So far with me and they are all under a year old.

Voodoo Queen. Love the way it changes colour during the day
Gator Pride. Blooms every day.
Chariots of Fire.Looks so good at night under my lights outside.
Magnifique. Took my first graft and it worked [my only sucess so far],and was amazed when the graft bloomed as a double where as the mum was a cup and saucer,having no experience i did not know that was possible.

Kerry says she had problems with cheap plastic pots,is this normal as i have 2 in cheap plastic as this was the only 10inch i could find.

[Charlie]

David, two comments on your pots. About the form of Magnifique - just about all doubles will show a variety of forms from full to cup and saucer to just a few flags off the staminal column and some even bloom single at times. It has a lot to do with weather but isn't always predictable. Plastic pots are OK, particularly in tropicl climates like yours. They do not insulate as well as ceramic, for instance, which can be important in cooler climates or even in areas where the sun blasts relentlessly. In greenhouses and the tropics where you live plastic works fine, having the benefit of not drying out as quickly as clay pots. Wind can also be a factor since thin plastic pots weight next to nothing and can be blown over easily with the potential to damage the plants. Everybody eventually finds what works in their growing area and with the way they do things so the basic rule is - if it ain't broken don't fix it.

Charlie

[Manekineko]

Dear friends, say please, what sorts have not large bushes, but abundant flowering have. Thank you.

[Charlie]

There are very few hibiscus bushes that are naturally small. Commercial growers (not us!) apply growth retardant chemicals to reduce size but this is not a good solution unless you don't mind a short life for your hibiscus. Two of the smallest hibiscus hybrids I have grown are Double Date and Magic Carpet Ride. These are both good bloomers but rarely grow much more than about 2 feet tall. They are not available very often due to the fact that they do not make much wood that can be used to propagate new plants. Both do root although not particularly well. There are probably a few others that stay short but these are the only 2 I can think of right now that do so naturally.

Another category of good blooming compact hibiscus might be those that grow up to 3 feet or 1 meter in height after a few years. There are more of these, one of my favorites being Pocahontas which grows very full and blooms a lot but does not grow tall. Blond Ambition and Heartbreak Hotel are 2 others that bloom well but usually do not grow too tall.

Charlie

[Manekineko]

Charlie, thank you!

[Ernest]

Nobody has commented on this topic for the past three years so I thought I would offer my two cents worth. I toured my front yard growing areas today and identified 20 out of about 120 cvs that I thought showed superior growth patterns. This is, of course, anecdotal and unscientific and only applies to plants grown in the ground in my particular area of southern California. My chief criteria are strong upright growth and prolific branching in a symmetrical pattern. Most are also very good bloomers. Charlie should be quite pleased since it turned out that 19 of the 20 are HVH cvs.
These first ones whose photos are shown here were planted between June and August 2012 along my driveway where they get direct eastern and southern exposure to mid afternoon but are shaded from the western sun in late afternoon.

[Ernest]

The next ones were also planted in summer 2012 but in the front garden area with all day southern exposure and only some intermittent shading by two large palm trees.

[Ernest]

Continuing more of the same

[Ernest]

The first three are planted along the eastern property line and get full morning sun but are largely shaded from the hot afternoon sun by plumerias and a large tangerine tree. These three have been in the ground for about 1 1/2 years.
The last three are planted against the front of the house facing due south and thus getting direct southern exposure but are partially shaded by large plumeria in the spring and summer. They have been in the ground for 4-5 years.

[Ernest]

To summarize, my two best growers among the older plants are (hands down) Simple Pleasures and Electric Orange. Living Legend, Love Story, and Nightfire are also strong growers. Among the newer plants Sizzle and Hollywood Starlet are standouts thus far but final analysis must await further growth.
The parentage of these cvs is varied but the following are the only ones that appear as parents more than once among the twenty: Saffron (5), Creme de Cacao (3),
High Voltage (3), The Path (2), and Moonstruck (2).

Erny

[Doll]

The best ones for me are Rainbow Sherbert and Cindy's Heart.

[farmer d]

Erny this is a great idea to update this topic!  Seeing your bush shots is so helpful for me to gauge where mine are at, if I can get more out of them and which ones I should reconsider getting...

John I agree with you on Rainbow Sherbet, just an amazingly easy and symmetrical bush to grow for me so far (4/2010 planted as a big 4").  What I love about Cindy's Heart is that it really does it's best growing in the hot sun - out of over 100 here it is the best in that category.  I am hoping Ingenue does the same, I planted mine in a really hot spot and so far it is looking great.

Erny my Sizzle looks exactly like your's, super vigorous and a really full, round shape to it.  Mine lost quite a few leaves from the freeze last month so we'll see if she'll refoliate like before.

One thing I have been doing with my bushes is I try not to prune them so I can see what their true shape is meant to be.  An interesting example is Acapulco Gold.  From what I've read here on the forum people are quick to prune it since it tends to have such a vigorous and more open growth habit.  Being that mine is outdoors and in the ground I have not touched it.  What I have seen is how immense the width is going to be on this cv.  

Erny I saw this first hand at your house with many of your hibiscus.  Many that I've had for a while now like Valentines Day, Black Dream, Palm Springs, Daisy Mae, and Some Like It Hot are showing this same characteristic also.  I'm talking like 6-7 feet across, so as they mature and grow both horizontally and vertically I am very curious to see if they fill in with lush leafing and branching.  It seems like the plant wants to first send out these horizontal branches far away from the base and then many new branches form off of these big offshoots all of which are growing vertical.  I am seeing this patten on most of my plants these days.  I'll post some pics to show this.  It is very exciting to see how monsterously big these plants want to be when the roots have no bounds.

My best bush out of all of mine is Valentines Day.  It has become so wide which is a challenge as I am so space constrained on my property that I have developed a new technique where I tie wires from the outer branches to the inner ones to train them to grow more vertically and keep the width of the bush a little more under control.  I have done this technique now with quite a few of my hibiscus in an effort to give the smaller and younger ones some breathing room to properly grow.  Pics to follow soon...

Farmer D

[Ernest]

Darren and John, my Rainbow Sherbert and Valentine's Day also show great promise with upright growth and good branching. I didn't include them because they haven't grown as much thus far as the  others. Since so many of mine have only been in the ground for about 6 months there is probably a considerable bias toward the faster growers and possibly the better winter growers.
By contrast, my first planting 10 years ago with nine older cvs has grown into a hedge so thick that it is almost impossible to tell anything about any single cv's growth pattern.

Erny

[Charlie]

Great discussion. Thanks for the photos and details, Erny. You may be right that some of the top 20 are fast or good winter growers, but many will probably stay in your top group. A few others, Confection Perfection comes to mind, are slower growers but still become very large and full plants as they mature over several years. The advantage of that is that they also remain more compact and full of blooming stems as they grow larger. I look forward to seeing the results from this summer!

Interesting technique for getting more space, Darren. I really want to visit and see all this soon.

Charlie