Hibiscus Gardens Around the World

Santa Barbara, California, USA

Hibiscus love the Southern California Coast!

This is Brad. He and his wife Beverly are lucky enough to live in wonderful Santa Barbara, only 2 miles from the Pacific Ocean, right off the beautiful, scenic coastal highway. The weather is perfect for both hibiscus and humans - warm and sunny but not too hot in the summer, and cool but temperate during the winter, with rare nights below freezing.

Here Brad is standing by his Ross Estey hibiscus bush that spills out into the street in front of his house. Ross Estey is considered the father of modern, exotic hibiscus, and his namesake hybrid is one of the early successful attempts from the 1950's to hybridize new hibiscus with multiple colors.

For those of you who use Instagram, you may know Brad as the Hibiscus Whisperer. He is famous for his beautiful hibiscus photos that he posts almost daily. Now we get to see where he grows his famous hibiscus flowers!

Brad grows his hibiscus in pots so he can move them into a greenhouse during winter freezes. He uses all kinds of pots, shapes, sizes and heights to create the look of a Mediterranean garden all around his house and yard. Paths lined with pots lead to shady enclaves, inviting you to wander here and there, then to stop in the shade and breathe in the beauty.

Brad's entire yard is ringed with dense trees and foliage, and trees grow all over his property. So his hibiscus grow mostly in the shade of all these trees and foliage, which does amazing things for their colors. The Southern California sun can be relentless for 6-8 months out of the year, which does bring out the hottest hibiscus colors. But it tends to burn out many of the blues, browns, pinks and darker or rosier reds because of their more fragile anthocyanin pigments. Brad's shady yard is perfect for these colors. He gets very intense blues, pinks and browns as a result.

Brad's hibiscus grow in the midst of his thriving garden "jungle." The shady garden brings out all
the anthocyanin pigments which create blue, pink, brown and darker or rosier red flowers.

'Fifth Dimension' develops spectacular colors in Brad's shady garden.

Branden Tangel, Brad and Beverly's future son-in-law, is the power behind the hibiscus garden. He planted the hibiscus plants and keeps them flourishing year round, along with their angel trumpet trees. Branden works tirelessly and asks Brad for nothing in return. Their most recent project was putting a new canopy on their greenhouse. Branden wasted no time getting to work on the project, and their little grandson Bladen even joined in, helping clip the new shade-cloth and canopy to the cinder blocks. The entire hibiscus garden is a family labor of love that involves all three generations!

Brad and Beverly's greenhouse

Brad's greenhouse is 10 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 30 feet long, covered with greenhouse canopy, and fastened down with baton straps. Brad is in the process of adding a second greenhouse right next to this one, but has a massive tree stump to remove and neighbors who object to dynamite, so he is still somewhat "stumped" by this problem.