Deb, I would love a cutting from your CR. Want that with a passion. Or, have I already asked for that?
Judy
This was too die for, a must must must have.
The man came in today and I asked if he was going to root some this year and he said yes. He told me he only rooted them every other year. For what reason I don't know. I will try to send cutting when I get ready to cut back. They haven't started to bloom yet but should in the next week or so. Then if you don't have any luck with rooting I will get some from the man next spring. He has two trees and they are probably 30 feet. I mean big.
Judy I will take care of a cutting for you.
Yay! Way to go Georgia, looks like they'll be a lot of happy DGers in the Hib forum.
Gosh, 30 foot trees of bloom. That must be a grand sight.
Kell, wish I had seen this post before I went out of town. I just came back from Plant Delights and he had all sorts of hardy hibs, many I had never seen before.
You can train them to be what ever shape you like. A neighbor trained hers into a tree so she would have more real estate to plant underneath hers.
I just purchased two Hibiscus mutabilis double-blooms on eBay which arrived well rooted and in excellent condition from this eBay auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=370248261160
Here is the seller’s page:
http://shop.ebay.com/dogwooderitternet/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=
I would not have believed that you could ship a healthy well rooted plant in a pot as small as was used. I moved the two H. mutabilis to larger pots and they will be house plants for the winter. The seller doesn’t currently have any listed for sale but I know he has them.
But forget about a H. mutabilis double-blooms too-die-for, how about a new H. mutabilis cultivar too-kill-for? There is a Hibiscus mutabilis spontaneous mutation by the name of Alma’s Star which has been patented and is available for sale.
Warning: If you click on the following link you may start ripping other Hibiscus out of your garden to make room for Alma’s Star!
Alma's Star
http://www.southerngrowers.com/alma's_star.htm
I have one plant on order directly from Southern Growers which should be arriving within the week. There are several websites, with VERY BAD Garden Watchdog ratings, offering Alam’s Star for sale, so I would recommend you purchase directly from the grower who is still shipping. Again, this plant will be a house guest for the winter.
Here are more pictures too-kill-for. If you have a pre-existing medical condition, do not open the second link below; you have been warned!
ALMA's STAR: A Confederate Rose By Any Other Name Takes Its Place In The Sun
http://www.alfafarmers.org/neighbors/neighborsStory.phtml?id=4504
Master Gardener Alma Bodiford Registers New Variety of Confederate Rose
http://www.alafarmnews.com/1206archive/1206bodiford.htm
Mike
This message was edited Sep 30, 2009 7:23 AM
I don't know what to say about that! How much did you pay for it & what size plant will you be getting. Sorry to be so nosey but I've never heard of it but it's a beauty for sure!
Davis1676,
If you go to the following page, click on the “BUY NOW OR INQUIRE” line to send an Email to Southern Growers requesting a price list. By return Email you will receive the prices including quantity discounts and shipping costs.
Alma's Star
http://www.southerngrowers.com/alma's_star.htm
As I don’t know DG’s policy on posting prices I will not do so but I would say that the price (quantity one) is about what I would pay for a quality cold-hardy Hibiscus at my local garden center. Shipping costs are also competitive.
Mike
As long as you are not the nursery owner/vendor or are not affiliated with it in any way, you can post anything to recommend (or not, as long as it's not slanderous) a plant or vendor. Please let us all know how your plants looks upon arrival.
Sue,
Thank you for the clarification on posting prices! Currently one Alma’s Star costs $19.99 and shipping is $7.95. In quantity eight the unit price is $16.99 and the total price is $135.92, with shipping $20.38 (15%). I am expecting delivery in about a week and will post a picture here and a report to the Garden Watchdog.
I will photograph the Hibiscus mutabilis double-blooms which I already have and post a picture here.
Mike
Thanks Mike, I've sent my request in!
deb
My Confederate Rose started to bloom Saturday. Here's a picture of it.
I call it yesterday, today and tomorrow.
A spent bloom from yesterday, a bloom for today and a white bud for tomorrow.
And here's the size of the bloom. I am 6'6" tall so the hand isn't a little hand. LOL
Jim, that is absolutely stunning. A really big WOW flower. Just love it. Got your cuttings
rooting. Thanks for sharing this beauty with us.
Judy
Here are the two Hibiscus mutabilis double-blooms which I purchased on eBay for $7.00 ($3.50 each) plus a shipping total of $5.75. The Hibiscus arrived in 3.25” high pots, one of which can be seen in the photograph. The plants are 10” high and were immediately transplanted into the pots you now see them in upon delivery. The cuttings were very well rooted and arrived in a triangular USPS shipping box and were in excellent condition. They will spend the New Jersey winter is a south facing window.
On the second shelf you can see some of the cold-hardy Hibiscus cuttings I am starting. I am also growing several cold-hardy Hibiscus species from seeds.
Mike
Beautiful blooms, Georgiaredclay!
My Alma’s Star Hibiscus mutabilis arrived on Thursday October 15, 2009 accompanied by extra product tags, photographs of which are attached this post. According to the product description, Alma’s Star should survive in Nutley New Jersey which is Zone 6B as a perennial. I have the advantage or disadvantage, depending on how you want to look at it, of living 9 miles from New York City’s Time Square and am well inside to New York heat island so my climate is more like Zone 7A than 6B. As long as New York keeps pumping out heat during the winter, Alma’s Star should be OK but I may not take a chance for the winter of 20010-2011. As the song says, “If you can make it here you can make it anywhere”.
Here is the Plant Patent application for Alma’s Star:
Hibiscus plant named Alma's Star
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=Zz3IAAAAEBAJ
Mike
Alma’s Star arrived on Thursday October 15, 2009 just in time for the earliest snowfall in the recorded weather history of New Jersey. The Hibiscus mutabilis was well packed and the 3.5 inch square pot was secured within the shipping container and covered in plastic. The Hibiscus was 11 inches in height above the dirt but the leaves were a little wilted because of the cold weather. Southern Growers had suggested that I wait until spring to ship but I though I had a few extra weeks and insisted that they deliver in October which is usually safe in my section of New Jersey but not this year. Over the next week the two bottom leaves turned brown and fell off but the other leaves picked up and Alma’s Start is now doing well after 10 days in New Jersey. I have Alma’s Star in a southern facing window with my other two Hibiscus mutabilis double-flowers and am looking forward to the spring.
Unless I can find someone else in my locality who also has Hibiscus mutabilis I am going to have to conduct some controlled tests over the next few years to see just well how well Hibiscus mutabilis can survive a New Jersey winter, which if the lack of sunspots continues is going to become “interesting” in the coming years. From the descriptions I have read it is incredibly easy to root Hibiscus mutabilis so I may grow a few clones to see what I can get away with during the winter. With any luck, look for pictures next summer which is why I wanted to overwinter the Hibiscus in my home.
According to some papers I have read, Hibiscus mutabilis will hybridize with Hibiscus moscheutos but the hybrids are sterile because of chromosome mismatches. Fertility can be restored through chromosome doubling but it is not easy for a private citizen to gain access to the chemicals which work for Hibiscus. There are easily available agricultural chemicals which do work for some plant species but they are not effective for Hibiscus. If anyone has done chromosome doubling in Hibiscus, please send me a PM.
Mike
p.s. The attached photographs are pictures of the arrival and transplanting of my Alma’s Star in a larger pot for the winter.
This message was edited Oct 25, 2009 1:56 PM
I want to correct a mistake I made in my last post on this thread. I had indicated that the Alma’s Star appeared to be “a little wilted because of the cold weather”. After observing the three Hibiscus mutabilis in my collection, I realized the leaves of this Hibiscus hang vertically; a fact which was confirmed by photographs posted on the Internet.
All three of my Hibiscus mutabilis are doing very well and one of the two double-flower plants has grown over a foot in five weeks with limited access to sunlight. The second double-flower is sending up multiple new stems and appears to be ready the start growing seriously as well. The Alma’s Star has recovered from its journey and is starting to set new leaves.
In the attached group photograph of the three (3) Hibiscus mutabilis, Alma’s Star is in the center. If this growth continues, I may have to move the plants to a new location as they are now approaching the ceiling.
Mike
wow mike they look great..
Kell, this is a pic of an opening bloom on mine. It looks a lot like the pink one in your first posting. Mine is only a couple of years old and is well over 6'.
AuntAnne thats a pretty flower
jen
It brings so much color to the yard this time of year. The nice thing is that there can be 2 or 3 colors going at once. Anything from white to dark pink and several shades in between. I have another in a pot that I'm going to plant in the spring.
I finally went back to the original picture place in the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. It has a sign now.
I have to read thru this thread to see if this is the name we had decided on.
A weird woman kept trying to get close behind me as I was trying to get a picture. She so creeped me out, I took one shot as I was on the move to get away from her, it is a bit blurred.
I noticed it is in a different form, less tree like, than it was before so I think it has been cut down and regrew. I wonder if it is frost tender.
PS Michael_Ronayne
I so love your tile and counter. What is the counter made of? Is that your kitchen?
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=7205089
Kell
The buds on it look awfully much like a Confederate Rose. As do the leaves. Mine was blooming so beautifully, and then the freeze. That's all folks, till next year.
Anne
Hey Kelley girl, I can't believe how old this thread is.
It seems there are so many forms of H. mutabilis these days. Singles and doubles, some that are changeable and some that aren't. They do go dormant in the winter and you can cut them back to whatever size and shape you wish. They would be hardy where you are Kell and they really are big and PINK.
That creepy woman was probably just trying to eavsdrop; you know you have to be a hoot to listen to in person. :-)
Oh, she is!! ;-)
The only trouble with that was I was all alone. Though perhaps my conversations among myself may be the best ones. LOL
Hey Alice! HELLO! Big and PINK, sounds like me! LOL Hope you are going to have the best holidays. Knowing you, your house is no doubt all gussied up in holiday cheer!
LOL, no gussying this year Kell, I am calling it tasteful restraint. :-) We have just had the whole house painted inside; the painter finished up about 4 hours ago. I am not sure when, if ever, I'll get it back in shape. The holiday decorating will be minimal at best but, the grands will be arriving Christmas day so I might get my fanny in gear before they get here.
Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful holiday season.......
Wow it is nice to see a thread on hardy hibiscus and thanks for the introduction to Alma's Star. That will be on my "need" list for this spring for sure!!
I just discovered that Hibiscus mutabilis (Confederate Rose) is extremely vulnerable to whitefly (http://www.google.com/search?q=whitefly) infestation. My three Hibiscus mutabilis had been doing very well until about two weeks ago when I started noticing that the stems were no longer standing as upright has they had been. I had noticed small whiteflies and a small black fly flying around the racks where I keep my plants for the winter. In the last week the deterioration of the Hibiscus mutabilis was noticeable and I had started loosing Hibiscus seedling of several species which had been doing very well until then.
When I inspected the Hibiscus mutabilis I discovered a massive whitefly infestation on the leaves and stems of the plants. The Hibiscus seedlings which were in trouble had small black flies congregating about the roots which were withered. I did try rescuing some of the distressed seedlings by planting them deeper in the ground to increase the area of the stems in contact with the soil.
I had Spectracide Malathion on hand for my last insect problem and had already recalibrated the formulation which came on the bottle label from gallon quantities to small batches of 0.5L and 1.0L which can be loaded into a spray-bottle. The attached graphic contains the recalibrated formulations which I did in Excel. I used 2.9ml of the concentrate in 500ml of water.
The spray was applied to all my plants and the soil for two consecutive days. I am seeing reappearance of whiteflies and the black flies in small numbers which are quickly killed by the Malathion spray. I suspect that I will have to be vigilant for the next few weeks but I appear to have the problem under control for now. Obviously I don’t what to overdo Malathion indoors.
One DG member had commented that they don’t keep Hibiscus mutabilis in Florida because of the whitefly problem. I suspect that my whiteflies were hitchhikers on one of the shipments from Florida. I have no idea where the small black flies came from but they or their larvae appear to go after the roots of Hibiscus seedlings, with the smaller plants being most vulnerable. One Internet BLOG (http://blog.nola.com/dangill/2008/07/carefree_color.html) suggested that whiteflies can be eradicated for the year by applying the systemic insecticide Imidacloprid at the beginning of the growing season. I will have to look into that before spring, assuming that I can keep the whiteflies under control until then.
My Excel spreadsheet of recalibrated Malathion formulations is available to anyone who wants it.
Mike
Mike, Once you get them clean, run out to your garden center and pick up some worm castings. Top dress those pots with a heavy layer and your white flies will leave for more hospitable plants at your neighbor's house. I use them on my outdoor H mutabilis and haven't had a problem in years. I also use them as a top dressing on my tropical hibs and on my gardenias which are also white fly magnets.
Wow you two that is some great information. I have a severe white fly problem in my yard!!
The Spectracide Malathion was very effective in reducing the whitefly and small black fly problems on my Hibiscus mutabilis but did not completely eliminate it. Two days after treatment small populations of whitefly began to re-colonize the leaves from sources unknown. Each successive wave of infection was less than the last and the health of the Hibiscus mutabilis was improving thanks to the treatments and the application of Miracle-Gro. I did reduce the concentration of Malathion to the manufactures lowest recommended dosage of 0.977ml per 500ml of water which did appear to be just as effective at controlling the recurrent outbreaks. As I did not want to continue this cat-and-mouse game with the bugs until spring and worm casting are not available in New Jersey at this time of year unless you purchase them over the Internet with ridiculous shipping charges, I decided to take a serious look at using Imidacloprid.
Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid, which is a class of neuro-active insecticides modeled after nicotine. A patented chemical, Imidacloprid is manufactured by Bayer Cropscience (part of Bayer AG) and sold under trade names Kohinor, Admire, Advantage, Gaucho, Merit, Confidor, Hachikusan, Premise, Prothor, and Winner. It is marketed as pest control, seed treatment, an insecticide spray, termite control, flea control, and a systemic insecticide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid
Under the Bayer trademark Imidacloprid (Advantage®), Imidacloprid is used as a once-a-month topical insecticide on cats and dogs to kill fleas. It is mixed with an oil carrier and the drug collects in the hair follicles from which it is slowly released.
Bayer markets a product “Tree & Shrub Insect Control” where the only active ingredient is Imidacloprid. This is a slow acting insecticide which is intended for one application yearly in the spring before insects become a problem. Imidacloprid is absorbed by the plant and provides systemic protection throughout the growing season as it will spread to new growth. It is not approved for indoor use but I suspect that is only because Bayer never considered that anyone would contemplate such an action. As “Tree & Shrub Insect Control” is only sold in large packaging sizes its use is not cost effective for small indoor problems. This product in various package sizes is sold at Lowes year-round.
Tree & Shrub Insect Control
http://www.bayeradvanced.com/product/Tree-Shrub-Insect-Control/
Fortunately Bayer has indoor approved formulation of Imidacloprid which are suitable for small applications in both indoors and outdoor environments. The product is marketed under the Bayer trade name ”Dual Action Rose & Flower Insect Killer” and is sold at Lowes in a 24 OZ (709 ml) spray bottle for $4.97.
Dual Action Rose & Flower Insect Killer
http://www.bayeradvanced.com/product/Dual-Action-Rose-Flower-Insect-Killer/
This is a ready-to-use formulation which contains Beta-cyfluthrin (0.0015%) and Imidacloprid (0.0120%) and reports to provide protection for up to 30 days. I followed the treatment recommendations for my entire indoor Hibiscus collection but also applied the chemical to the roots of my three Hibiscus mutabilis as recommended by the tree and shrub formulation of the Bayer product.
Beta-cyfluthrin an especially effective isomer of cyfluthrin which is an active ingredient in Baygon. Cyfluthrin is a pyrethroid derivative which is used as an insecticide. For addition information see the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyfluthrin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethroid
It appears that Beta-cyfluthrin is a fast acting insecticide while Imidacloprid is a slow acting insecticide which prevents re-infections. Given the properties of Imidacloprid one has to wonder why Nicotine Sulfate, a natural insecticide approved for organic gardening, was take off the marker.
I redid the Spectracide Malathion small batch reformulation matrix to include a 750 ml volume because that is the upper limit of the larger calibrated spray bottles sold in the United Sates. A redundant column with reparative data was also eliminated. A generic reformulation matrix was included for teaspoon and tablespoon quantities of insecticides over a likely range of dosage regiments to be diluted in one gallon of water which are the typical measurements most chemical manufactures use in the United States.
I will post an update in a few weeks on how Hibiscus mutabilis are doing under the new treatment. If this works I will purchase the Bayer Tree & Shrub Insect Control this spring. I am also looking into local sources for worm castings. There are some good reports of that treatment but I have no idea as to why it works.
Mike
This message was edited Jan 4, 2010 2:45 PM
A new lesson for me!! Next question is do you mind if I copy you postings and keep a file of them for future use?
I have to put Advantage on my list of things to have for control in the garden. I'm not sure of what bugs will try to take over my garden, but we do fight fleas and ticks here.
Marti001,
Anything I post is either content which I developed or is in the public domain. Please be free to use it in anyway you wish. Content to which I link may or mayn't be in the public domain and you should check with the website containing that content.
Mike
Thanks Mike.
I've started a file to keep all the information I collect from everyone on DG. That way I can look things up easier than trying to remember which post I need.
Mary
You can always tag it with the little folder at the top left, either an entire thread or open a single post like Micheal's informative one above by clicking on the post# and then clicking the folder. You can then label it and decide to keep your tag private or add it to the public tagged page list. It's like bookmarking something but all within Daves.