I have a "pandemic" of plant rust that affects not only my Hibiscus but Morning Glory's as well in one bed. I have cleaned and cleaned, even replace the top 4 inches of soil and sprayed all of the landscape timbers with bleach. I'm very careful of how I water the plants and spray with fungicide but it still infects my hibiscus. It started with Morning Glory a few years ago so I quit growing MG's in the bed and this year I tried the Hardy Hibiscus (H. moscheutos) and Sorrel Hibiscus (H. sabdariffa) and now they have rust.

I give up.

Can anyone suggest a good replacement with showy flowers and/or foliage that is NOT susceptible to rust?

So it's a full sun spot? How big? Can you add a pic of the area?

It gets full sun pretty much all day. It's big.

Here is a picture of the bed:



Here is what's in it now:

Nice spot! Don't know your taste particularly but I might like some Gardenias, Sedums, a ramblin' rose to lean along the fence maybe at each end, tuck in some patches of Amaryllis, Tradescantia pallida, creeping Phlox. Agree the bigger stuff should be centered (from side to side,) so it doesn't hang out into the lawn, but the smaller stuff doesn't have to go in a row. Clumps filling in under/around the bigger shrubs could help get rid of the row effect, even in such a long, narrow rectangle. In the spring you can throw a few annuals in there for more wow'er flower/foliage power. Whatever you like of suitable size that likes full sun (and doesn't get rust) should do well there.

If you made the bed a couple feet wider, you would have more choices of bigger shrubs (or at least not needing to prune something as often,) since they wouldn't hang out into the yard as easily, if that is of interest to you. You probably don't want to block the view too much that it makes your house less secure, probably a balancing act you've already considered.

Do you use some type of treatment, weed'n'feed on your lawn? That stuff is usually not helpful for garden plants and looks like the yard may slope toward the bed/street, so it may be being washed into the bed.

This is my strip

Purple Smoke - to the right. It is a beautiful bush with such beautiful color all spring and summer. I look for color foliage and if I want flowers I plant a clematis and let is climb the bush.


Fairy Rose - Blooms non-stop Spring to Fall. Never without flowers.


Amber Carpet Rose


I will also offer the Suggestions I gave Clint for replacement for roses.

I have Clematis integrifolia. This is one of the bush clematis it blooms from July until Fall. Also check out their Jasmines. (the site below) I love the fragrance. Maybe if you cannot find a gardenia hardy enough you could plant a jasmine and let it climb through one of your bushes.

http://www.gardenvines.com/sho...

My other suggestion is Silver Sword Azalea. It is even evergreen in my zone and Beautiful Fall colors so it is a 3 season bush.

Your bed is beautiful! and you've given some great suggestions .. I hadn't thought of azaleas .. I'll have to do a little research to make sure they aren't susceptible to rust along with clematis and find some that can tolerate blazing sun and being next to an asphalt road. The soil temperature in the bed seems to run about 5 degrees warmer than everywhere else in my yard - even in winter! I had some miniature climbing roses growing up all the posts but they just never seem to like the extra radiant heat of the road .. my MG's went gaga over it and one day it dawned on me that there were always twice as many buds on 'hot side' next to the road than on the cool side .. that was an interesting revelation.

Well Azaleas and Clematis are sensitive to rust .. I need to find plants that won't be affected by the rust fungus.

Is that all Clematis? The Bush Clematis vs the climbers might be different. I do not know I am just asking.

I have had Azaleas for decades and never had rust or fungus. I do not know about the new cultivars just the native ones.

From what I've been reading, deciduous azaleas can get rust but evergreen azaleas don't but can harbor the fungus .. there are some 'resistant' azalea plants but the thing is, I'm not going to put anything in that bed that even remotely may be susceptible or harbor rust, That bed is teeming with rust since everything I put in there that is susceptible gets it. All genus of Clematis is susceptible to rust though according to research it only affects it cosmetically but it still can produce spores when it runs it's cycle.

I have never heard of that but I do know daylilies get rust and they are cultivars that are susceptible and I bought none of those and when I found that I have something I throw it away. Guess what? I have rust, all the so called un-susceptible ones got it. I guess I threw away 30 daylilies for nothing.
All of our Azaleas are evergreen, I have never seen a deciduous one. There is some good stuff out for rust now called Bayer Tree&Shrub protect&feed, works for 12 months. I was told it works for daylilies also. And I have had good success so far with aspirin spray. I did not whack off all my plants there are some I experiment on. Bahahahahaha.

Black spot, powdery mildew, and rust are a terrible trio of fungi, Scientists have found that two uncoated aspirin tablets (325 milligrams each) dissolved in 1 quart of water and used as a foliar spray can thwart these diseases.
http://www.finegardening.com/h...

With your zone , desert cactus or willow rose etc desert rose , Kind of overpowering as size or foilage goes , but it could be a direction to look into . I was thinking tree peonie at first only we are back to rust again .