Blooming away in the greenhouse. Both flowers are on the same plant. Is it common for them to produce both types of flowers? This one does it pretty often.




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It's not unusual at all for double H. rosa-sinensis to go from single to double on the same plant. A lot of my doubles do that, like Love Story. Exact same plant produced both blooms.

How beautiful! I'm relatively new to seriously collecting hibiscus but I feel a powerful addiction coming on. If only BUGS didn't like them so much. We had to sacrifice one to scale rather than risk our entire plant population this fall. We moved two into the greenhouse and we've been spraying...spraying...spraying... They're one of the few truly beautiful flowers that survive and thrive in this South Louisiana heat and humidity but everything eats them. Cutworms, leaf footed bugs, scale... It's a constant battle.

Awesome! Another Hibiscus fan! Perhaps this Spring we can trade cuttings. I collect various species of Hibiscus from the ultra tropical to the ultra hardy.

I love trading plants! I don't have much to offer in the way of Hibiscus right now but I DO have a shopping list of the Cajuns that I plan to buy this spring. My OCD collection plants for a million years have been anthuriums and more recently, exotic impatiens.

Is there a super secret systemic insecticide that maybe can help with the cut worm issue? I don't have scale here but my fiancee moved from Baton Rouge and we had to leave several hibiscus behind because of crazy scale infestations. Here, I battled "the worm" all summer. I've never wanted to kill a living thing as badly as I wanted to smash that worm's brains out. I tried every poison and home remedy that I could find. He's still alive and well...enjoying his warm winter retreat in the greenhouse.

Thankfully I have never had any insect problems with any of my Tropical Hibiscus. You might try a systemic soil drench like Bayer 3 in 1 Insect and Fungicide. When I get scale on my Gardenias, I take the water hose and rub it off the stems and leaves.

I also mix up Diatomaceous Earth, DE in the potting mix I use with all my plants. The mix I use is ProMix BX and Lowes Evergreen Top Soil mixed together 50 50.

I like the Bayer Rose and Flower insecticide so I'll have to try the other. The DE is a great idea. Wonder if it would keep ants from making a home in the pots?

It was because of ants I started mixing it with potting mix just to see if it works and it does!

That's the best news I've had all day! We have a bad fire ant problem and they're really bad about invading the flower pots.