Re: Tropical Hibiscus

Figures...there's always one in the crowd! :-)  Hey, if it ain't broke,
don't fix it...

I used to fall prune before bringing my hibiscus into the greenhouse for
winter...But found that I ended up with a lot of spindly growth come
spring. I was not pruning til September/October, though. If one just has to
prune before bring the plants in, late summer is probably better than fall.

 The other down side to fall pruning is that you have no blooms over the
winter. I have gotten involved in hybiscus hybridization the last couple of
years and Fall in East TN, with it's cooler temps and high humidity, is the
ideal time for successful seed production. So I don't prune til late winter...

As to heat response..It varies from cv to cv..some plants bloom better with
a little shade in the hot afternoon. Another thing that has come out on the
hibiscus maillist is that high root temperatures are also a factor in bloom
reduction during summer.  This year I installed a drip system that delivers
a trickle of water for 5 minutes three times a day, and it's made a
tremendous difference in the amount of bloom.

Cheers,

Gerry

At 07:22 PM 8/3/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Gerry --
>
>Thanks for the info.  Unfortunately, my own Hibiscus doesn't surf the Web
>so hadn't heard that it was supposed to respond negatively to the
>fertilizer I've been giving it for, oh, fifteen or so years.  Plants are
>funny that way.  Will try giving it something different to see how it
>responds.
>
>Yes, I agree about the mature new wood.  I usually prune mine in the
>fall, before bringing it into the house, when the cool sends it into
>semi-dormancy.  I've found the "too hot" thing can often be resolved by
>moving the plant into a partial sun location.  Here in southeast Michigan
>there's only a couple days between "too cool" and "too hot," whether in
>the spring or in the fall, so the potted plants move around a lot
>throughout the season.
>
>Dean Sliger
>Warren, Michigan, USA
>Zone 6B
>
 

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