How red is this?

Red is a rose can be!

Nice Bloom...

Thanks,early am sun was hitting just right!

beautiful

very nice shade of red, I love it. What's the name?

I got this as a cutting close to 8yrs ago,from Marcy 1 in Ohio,I;ll have to ask her if she ever got a name for it!

Hey Don.....sooo pretty! Nope...never did get a name for it. I always called it Dave Rector's hibiscus...cause that was a garden friend I got it from! LOL...and I don't have any idea where he got it??? Mine was about a 6 inch cutting when he gave it to me in a paper cup! I gave my big one to Ric...and took cuttings...but none survived...so have to get another cutting.
It sure is a prolific bloomer..isn't it?


Edited to say...ohhhh I forgot! I do have another one...on the front porch !!!

This message was edited Jun 26, 2009 8:53 PM

That isn't a tropical?

Yes it is tropical,thanks Marcia,I just call it Marcia's Hibbie!!!LOL

I think it's a garden variety called "Celia"

Regards

Carlos

Tanks Carlos,
When I think of Belgium,I think of a cold frosty place,but I see your warmer than me!!!LOL

Hmmm...well, Carlos, tell us...just what is a garden variety? I have never heard any called that before?
Well that works, Don...lol!

Thanks,
Marcia

Hmm me either!!!

Sure is beautiful!

The tree is close to 8ft tall now,and when it has several blooms ,believe me its a eye catcher!

Have this Hib & it has bloomed really well for me the last couple of years. The tag on it says, "Cecelia". Bought it of Kroger's Grocery Store....couldn't resist the red color!

Thanks ,shouldn't be to hard to remember an old girlfriends name should it!!!LOL

8 ft is amazing to me. I've "never" seen anything like 5' on a tropical hibiscus around here & anything that came close had very few blooms. Wow & you're in Wichita!
Is it in a greenhouse all year or part year or what's your secret? Please tell.

Nice bloom and photo Don. It doesn't seem like there are tons of red doubles out there to me, so that's a good one to have. The double blooms have really been growing on me the last several months. I always had just one, but have added three others in the past couple of months. When they are completely full doubles they are absolutely gorgeous.
Jon

Well ,it comes out of the greenhouse in April stays out to middle October,loses a lot of leaves when it comes out and the same when It goes back in,but continues to bloom every once in a while in the greenhouse,why it has gotten so tall I don't know,none of my others have ever gotten that tall.
I started out to make it a standard,which it still is,if that has something to do with it,for the rest of my hibbies I've left into bushes.so maybe thats the trick.

The older garden varieties (called that because they are not the newer fancy hybrids) often got much larger than 5'. Some of those traits have been bred out of them while hybridizers strive instead for larger flowers with unique and often changeable colors. I always think the older varieties have a much heaver bloom also. It was not unusual to see a plant with dozens of flowers at the same time. You rarely see that with the newer cultivars.

Ahh...thank you, Ardesia, for explaining about the 'garden varieties'.

Yes I think the demand is for more smaller but bushier plants!

Speaking of smaller but bushier, here is a photo of 'White Wings' from Hidden Valley Hibiscus' website. How would you like to see all your favorite hibs blooming on bushes like this one? Heaven!

I would Dee, I would. Don't think it's gonna ever happen here unless they're fed with steroids.

good info, thanks for sharing. So I guess "standards" means you trim off the bottom stems? Right or wrong? Is there more?
ardesia, are the "garden varieties" single blooms & all one color then? I love the idea of the many blooms you describe. I've not seen any (that I can think of) of the hybrids shown on this forum around here...even the few nurseries we have.
dee, my enabling friend, the hib you've shown is pretty unusual then? How many blooms does a hybrid usually have at a time, 4-5?

debbie

Hey Debbie,

I think of garden variety as the more common hibiscus. Out here they are both singles and doubles; Celia, Misty Isle and Kona are doubles that come to mind and are pretty readily available. I don't think they are necessarily all one color either...but what do I know :-)

Standards are plants pruned to be trees so yes, the bottom branches have been pruned off.

d

Now, I'm confused also. I thought there were just hibiscus bushes or hibiscus trees. I assumed a hibiscus tree was either pruned and trained to grow as a tree or it was grafted onto a tall rootstock and grown that way. Here in South Florida you will see many many of the original older tropical (but not hybrid) hibiscus everywhere. Yes, they can get very tall (8 feet or more) on their own. They generally have smaller sized blooms (3 or 4 inches) but there can be dozens of them open on a single plant in one day.. Last week I saw 100's if not 1000's of them with pink blooms growing in The Florida Everglades on a drive from Ft Lauderdale to Naples, FL. Most retailers down here sell many varieties of the original tropical hibiscus but I've only seen two carrying hybrids on rare occasions. The price for hybrids may have something to do with that.
From what I've seen if you're looking for a hybrid with lots of bloom potential you might want to consider a mini hybrid (smaller sized 3-5 inch blooms). They also come in quite a variety of color combinations in the bloom. They can be just as spectacular as the larger sized blooming hybrids. The blooms are just smaller. The bloom potential of the larger blooming hybrids depends on the size of the plant, how well it is branched from growing on its own and pruning and how well you are taking care of it. Personally I've had anywhere from zero to 15 blooms on a large flowered hybrid on a given day. Usually its between zero and three or four blooms, but every once in awhile there can be a spectacular show. You want to have the camera nearby and ready for those amazing days.

Jon

Sorry to confuse you Jon, and maybe it's just my misunderstanding but I was speaking in generalities regarding standards...I have a type of camelia, a princess flower, and a wisteria that are what I refer to as standards. Shrubs/vines that have been pruned leaving a main trunk and trained to look like a tree. Perhaps I'm using the wrong term but that's my story and I'm sticking to it :-)

LOL. OK. No messing with the Californians from me. The only standards I was familiar with were the "standards" and "falls": that make up the bloom of a bearded iris!!

Yes,I prune the lower leaves,until I get the height I want,then keep pinching the tops until I get a tree shape,takes several years here due to only have 6 months of good growth because of winter time.
Even with all my hibbies if I get 5 blooms at one time,I think it as a miracle!!!!!

TM and GS are correct but I wonder how the word *standard* came to be used in horticulture.

Wonder no more!!!

http://www.hortmag.com/article/Training_A_Standard/

Tropicman, thank you so much for the info., I was kind of confused myself, that's why decided to keep out of conversation, the site is very informative, thanks.

BTW, the double red bloom is beautiful.

Wilfred

now that's what I was looking for, thanks Tropicman.

Thanks it was my pleasure!

thanks ardesia! I was looking through the thread to see who the 'GS' was you were referring to with 'TM' and then I realized it was me. My initials would actually be 'GO' for Guam's Orbit but that goes to show how my lack of punctuation and spacing can cause confusion :-)

dee

Dee, you weren't the only one.

Wilfred

red color is hard to catch in photo :-(

Gotcha LOL