Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A. Here at proven Winners, Color Choice Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella
me Rick weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.
Well Aloha Today we talk about hibiscus. And if you
think there was confusion with the name hydrangea, the same
maybe could be said about hibiscus. Hibiscus deeply woven into
the Hawaiian culture, serving as the official state flower and
a symbol of hospitality, the Aloha spirit. I love hibiscus
because it gives a tropical feel to my yard in
the heat of summer, and I loved the summertime. And
when a customer walks into the garden center and says,
I want a hibiscus, you got to do a little
bit of detective work. It's almost it's almost a homonym
with multiple meanings or intentions. It's like the word spring
could be water coming out of the ground, it could
be a season, it could be a metal coil. So
when they say I want hibiscus, Well, the great thing
about this, Stacey, there's lots of great choices.
Speaker 2: Well, that's true, and no matter what hibiscus, you leave
with you win? Did you get hibiscus? You know, it's
funny that we talk about all the confusion and hibiscus,
and that's really why we wanted to do this show,
because you know, we hear from so many gardeners who
write us about our products, and you know, they ask
us all these questions about hibiscus, where we're like, wait,
why would someone think that? So, you know, I think
there's enough confusion here and enough interesting hibiscus for us
to cover it. But in researching the show, I found
that hibiscus is even more confusing really than we originally thought. Yes,
are you ready for this?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay. The name hibiscus, which is the scientific genus for
the plant, even though there are many different common names,
as we will soon explain, derives from the Greek word
for the plant marshmallow. Oh yeah, so we'll be getting
into marshmallows because the family is known as the mallow
family or the malvasi. So hibiscus itself derives from the
Greek word for marshmallow. But now the plant that this describes,
the marshmallow, is not actually a hibiscuits. It's an alfea, yes,
and that something? Yes, it really is it.
Speaker 1: Blows your mind. And then once we get past the marshmallows,
let's talk about hibiscus tea too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, we're you know, I have never had it.
I've never had it, but it's a beautiful color. Yes,
and it is when we will be answering this question
probably the number one question that we get about hibiscus
at proven Winter's Color Choice Shrubs, even though the only
high biscus that we offer are tropical hibiscus and Rosa Sharon.
Number one question, can I use this for tea?
Speaker 1: Interesting?
Speaker 2: We get it, we hear it is almost every day.
Speaker 1: I like that. I know that they use hibiscus leaves,
hibiscus flowers at zoos for the iguanas and other animals
as an edible component of their diet. And of course,
Tufts University in the United States, just in the Boston
area created a real stir in twenty eighteen when they
said in their research they found hibiscus tea is one
of the best things you can drink for high blood pressure.
Speaker 2: And it's delicious. Well, you know, I have to just
because there's the opportunity here, I have to take at
one of our colleagues here at Proven Minterer's Colored Choice
Shrubs has a pet tortoise, a Russian tortoise, okay, and
its favorite food by far is hibiscus, specifically the tropical hibiscus,
and she has marvelous videos of this little tortoise just
go into town munching away. But the fact is, even
though yes, iguanas in tortoises love to eat them, and
even though we do have hibiscus tea, which is a
con seemable part of a specific type of hibiscus which
we'll get to the family, the malvasy is actually full
of edible plants. In fact, it contains chocolate.
Speaker 1: Chocolate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, theobroma cacau is in the malvasy.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean, can this plant family do it all?
Or what we're talking chocolate, we're talking cola, so the
nuts that traditionally flavored cola. And of course then we
have the tea, oh, cotton, cotton and okra, and I
know we both love okra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, Okra. There is a tie to okra
and I love okra. Yeah. So you know again, kind
of interesting when a customer walks in the door and
asks for a high biscus. Now we're primarily talking I mean,
that's all fascinating, but we're primarily talking about three different types.
In my mind, for the garden center customer, we have
the tropic high biscus, Stacy, I just watched a video
on YouTube where you talk about Hollywood high biscus. I
love Hollywood high biscus in the greenhouse when those are
in bloom. The flower colors unreal, rosa sensus. It's not hardy,
but does it give you the feel of the tropics
in summertime. The other high biscus that people commonly are
looking for is the herbaceous perennial high biscus. Some people
refer to it as rose mallow. And then thirdly, and
I'm sure you're going going to get into this, Stacy,
the Althea or hibiscus or rose of Sharon. And for me,
some of the cultivars, the varieties that proven winners Color
Choice shrubs has including I just love the pillar high
biscus and how it's a space saver, and how they're
not you know, they don't produce the seed that the
old altheas did. Boy, what a great line of let's
call them hibiscus. But once you've done that detective work
with the customer, then you can start to lead them
where they need to go.
Speaker 2: That's true because people do you know, it's common for
people to kind of conflate all of these things. And
you know, just as another example, people very often assume
that when they have purchased a summarific hibiscus, which is
a perennial or herbaceous perennial. It's a herbaceous perennial because
it dies back completely to the ground, there's nothing left
in the winter sprouts up from the roots. That's a
herbaceous plant. They write us about our woody hibiscus, oh
I bought one of your summarific hibiscus, because they just
kind of lump this all in together. But of course,
a perennial hibiscus, like the summarific series, is going to
behave much differently than our roses of Sharon, which are shrubs,
in that they are woody plants with woody parts that
persist above ground. And then just to add a little
twist in there, we have the Hollywood hibiscus, which are
perennial or a shrub if you live in US Diaz
nine or warmer and the rest of us treat it
like an annual. Yes, so it is. You know, I
understand why people are confused. So I think, you know,
as a first kind of bit of advice, if you're
going into the garden center and you're not quite sure
which hibiscus you want, you can start by asking for
a color.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker 2: Because there's you know, very different colors. The roses of
Sharon come in very different colors than the tropical hibiscus,
So roses of Sharon tend to be pink, purple, white,
the whereas the tropical hibiscus. You're not going to find
a purple in there, really, you know, more red and
pink and white. No yellow. Oh, the tropical hibiscus has
yellow and orange, right, but then the summerific perennial hibiscus
only the pink's, reds and whites. So it's if you
go in with a color in mind, that is going
to help your garden center match you up to your
dream hibiscus a lot more easily than if you just
say hibiscus.
Speaker 1: Another important thing to do, I have found is read
the tag that tags are there for a reason. Tags
are invested in for a reason and help us out here, Stacey.
So you walk into the garden center. If it's Hibiscus
rosa snensis, it's a tropical high biscus.
Speaker 2: That's great. Rosa sensus actually means Chinese rose, okay, which
it is not. But anyway, if it.
Speaker 1: Is Hibiscus syriacus, that is in althea or rose of
shares correcrect yep, all right, and then here's the tough one.
But we all have to learn together, folks. Hibiscus moscutos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so fun to say.
Speaker 1: It is fun to Is that how you pronounced rose mallow?
I've also heard it mosquitos. That's too close to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I didn't look up the etymology of that.
That would have been interesting to know if the ch
should be a ch or a hard cut, depending on
where it originated from. But yeah, you don't want it
to sound like mosquito, So moschutos it is.
Speaker 1: There we go. And then finally, as we touched on initially,
the Hibiscus sab sabdarifa sada. Yeah, so we call it roselle.
Speaker 2: This so roselle is the plant that is used for sea.
So none of those other hibiscus that we just listed
are going to make Hibiscus tea. They're not poisonous, and
they are edible to some extent or another, but they're
never going to give you that beautiful, bright red Hibiscus
tea that is only Hibiscus sabdorifa. And this is not
really a common plant, especially for us in the north.
It's only a perennial, much like tropical hibiscus in USDA
Zone nine or hotter. So you're only going to see
it potentially in garden centers probably down there, where it
is a perennial that they grow year after year. For
those of us in cold climates who want to grow
our own Hibiscus tea, we're pretty much only looking at
growing this from seed. You're not usually going to find
it unless you have a very specialty garden center. But
it is very easy to grow from seed, and if
you start it early enough indoors in a cold climate,
you can actually get to the point where it's flowering
and giving you it's fruit because you actually harvest the
what would be considered the fruit about a week after
the flower falls off. It's the little seedpod well before
the seeds develop. That is what the roselle or hibiscus
tea is made from. So if you want hibiscus tea,
you're gonna have to get seed, you're gonna have to
start it early, and you're gonna have to wait till
the end of the season. So it might be better
to just go buy the hibiscus tea, although it's worth growing.
It's a very lovely plant.
Speaker 1: I think so too fantastic. Well, I love high biscus
because any kind of high biscus, because they give me
a tropical feel. I tied that into this week's limb
a rick. Hibiscus blooms our symbolical and create a feeling paradoxical.
I live in the north, but after July fourth, it
feels and looks downright tropical. Aloha. We deserve this together.
Will reminisce about the weather last Jamanuary. It was miserable
and scary, but summer is pure bliss. I love summer,
and high biscus are an important part of that. Let's
see how Stacey ties this in in Plants on Trial.
That's next here on the Gardening Simplified Ship.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's color Choice
shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber evergreen for every
taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white
container your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are devoting
this episode to the marvelous, although mystifying high Biscus. A
great plant, a great genus of plants with all sorts
of interesting members. Much to my surprise, one of my
favorite trees is in the malvasy or, depending on if
you're a lumper or splitter, if you believe that plants
that are related should be all lumped together in one
big category, are split out into lots of separate categories.
It has formerly been in the Malvasi or mallow family,
which we're discussing today. Linden, really, yes, you know I
could see that, could you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I can see that. And I've never been called
a lumper or a splitter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, Linden, trees are believed to see in the
malvasy and they're gonna be flowering soon. And I love
nothing more than a warm night in June when the
lindens are in.
Speaker 1: Flour and they're buzzing, it is.
Speaker 2: Just the most magical experience. I absolutely adore the fragrance.
I wish I could bottle it and smell it anytime
I want. But yeah, in the malvasi and which is
so strange because obviously most of the hibiscus are not trees.
Can be quite large plants, but not trees, and they're
rarely fragrant, right, and Linden is extremely fragrance. So a
very interesting plant family. But we're not going to get
too science, yaya. We are horticulturists, so we're giving you
the advice and information you need to get the hibiscus
that you want, do what you want with it, and
of course enjoy it at its best. So that's why
today's Plants on Trial here is devoted exclusively to the
many proven matter's color choice roses of Sharon. Now, to
my eternal shame. When I first started in this job
fifteen years ago, you know, I was coming from New
York City, and in New York City, hibiscus are you know,
I don't think they quite rise to the level of
being called invasive rosa Sharon. They don't rise to the
level of being called invasive, but they are quite aggressive,
and you know, people have them and in the seeds
of rows of Sharon have a little kind of winged structure,
kind of feathery winged structure on them allows them to
drift on the wind, not long distances, because they're still
a fairly heavy seed, but they can fly a little bit,
and they can grow in sidewalk cracks and next to
buildings and vacant lots and all of this. So all
of that, you know, all of these different roses of
Sharon in New York crossing and just getting muddier and
muddier and uglier and uglier, you know, not good flower color.
And I was just like, ew, why do we offer
Rosa Sharon, Because in my head, Rosa Sharon was just
these you know, kind of ugly, weedy plants that just
grew up in vacant lots. And you know, my boss
at the time, Tim Wood, who has been our new
plant development manager for many years, was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
all roses of Sharon are very different. And he made
a very uh, you know, pointed effort to tell me
that one of the most things that he prioritizes in
selecting roses of Sharon for proof and winner's color choice
is the habit. Okay, Now, most people when they think
of a Rosa Sharon, they're just thinking of flowers, and
for good reason. And there are few plants that flower
as much as rows of Sharon in a summer. Yeah,
I mean, absolutely covered in flowers and just so easy
to grow. I mean, there's like they're foolproof. You know.
Of course people love hydrangees, but they get confused about hydrangeess.
Do I prune this? Do I not? Is it gonna bloom?
Is it not? I mean a Rosa Sharon. You plant
that thing. You've got flowers every summer, tons of them,
and you know there's really nothing to you know, debate about.
But so he has really prioritized the habit. And it
is true if you drive around on a summer afternoon
when the roses of Sharon are in bloom, and you're
gonna see them, especially here in Michigan, you see them
all over the place, you will see that those older
varieties they do kind of have an ugly habit, yea.
You know, they don't have an elegance or a grace
to them. The way that Tim described it to me
at the time was that they were clubby. So you
think about the proverbial like caveman club that's all like lumpy,
and that's kind of what they look like. And really,
no one had prioritized an elegant that actually accentuates your
landscape and not just like, oh, there's that weird, clumpy
thing flowering. So habit has been a very very crucial
part of his selection process as well as the breeders
that we work with. We already know because the breeders
that we work with prioritize a nice habit that we're
going to be getting good habits in the plants that
we then evaluate from these breeders, and it.
Speaker 1: Shows stacey and the varieties that are available.
Speaker 2: And then the other factor is flower color. Now, you know,
even the worst Rosa Sharon is still pretty nice. You know,
it's colorful and a nice time of the year when
it's flowering. But they do tend to get quite muddy.
They kind of always have this, at least conventional varieties,
just this sort of muddy undertone that just keeps the
colors from being bright and clear and crisp and exactly
what they are, like bright pink or bright purple, and
so we've really prioritized also working with breeders who value
these clear, bright, true colors, and those are our two
main factors. And by prioritizing those, over the many years
that we have been selecting and introducing roses of Sharon,
we have created quite a collection. And I'm going to
go over this real quick and tell you kind of
which is which, so you can pick the right rows
of Sharon for your purposes and what you want. So
Number one guy who's kind of out there on his
own a Zuri blue satin rows of Sharon one of
our all time best sellers. It is probably the truest
blue on the market, and we all know everybody loves blue. Now,
I will say when this plant is in bud, when
those buds stuck starts to come out, because the way
all hibiscus start to bloom, you know they're a bud,
and then they show a little color and then they
kind of get to this lipstick stage where there's like
a lot of color showing, and then the next day
they open and then they fall off after that one
day that they're open. So when a Zuri blue Satin
is in the bud and lipstick stage. It is a
true cobalt blue. I've really never seen anything like it.
When the flower opens, it does kind of go to
more of a blue lege avender color. But if you
want true blue, this is one of the closest you're
going to get. And best of all I know. If
people do have one complain about Rosa Sharon, it's that
they seed all over the place, as I was explaining
from my experience in the city, and this is sterile.
It does not set seeds. So this is a plant
that we cannot supply enough of. People love it. So
if you see a Missouri blue Satin and this is
sounding good to you, snap that up. It's actually from
the same plant breeder as bobo Hydrangea. Another of our
best sellers, okay, number two is the Chiffon series, now
also our best sellers. People cannot resist these. They are
characterized by double flowers, so they have the traditional kind
of satellite dish shape of a regular Rosa Sharon, and
then in the center where there would be that column
full of pollen and salmon's and all of that, a
lot of that has been transformed into more petals, so
it has like a powder puff inside it. Now, this
series Chiffon was developed by doctor Roderick Woods, and I
think I've probably talked about him before, but I just
cannot even possibly talk about Hibiscus without mentioning doctor Woods,
because he is incredible. So he was a professor at
Cambridge University, a professor of physiology. He was instrumental in
developing the Universal Safety Code for motorcycle gear. So all
of his research led to exactly how the gear should
be structured and built to best protect motorcyclists and reduce
injury and of course death. And so his work has
saved countless lives, reduced countless injuries. And when he retired
from Cambridge University he became a full time rosa Sharon Breeder.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure if you're watching us on YouTube, you're
seeing amazing photos of doctor Woods right now. So if
you're not, please do tune in because you do not
want to miss this guy. He takes his work very
seriously in a fun way, because you'll see pictures of
him with hibiscus and his beard, a vest that he
made of hibiscus flower. He just clearly loves his work,
so I love that the Hibiscus Cheffon series is so
delicate and so beautiful, but also kind of has this
like motorcycle edge, So a great testament if you have
a motorcyclist in your life that you love. Next is
the Paraplu series.
Speaker 1: Nowe I love this one.
Speaker 2: I do too. This one comes to us from France.
Mostly there is a one of Doctor Woods's variety in
the Paraplu series. Now, what characterizes the Paraplu series is
again those elegant habits, but most importantly, huge flowers. There
are no roses of Sharon on the market that have
flowers anywhere near the size of the Paraplu series. So
if big flowers that nobody can avoid is your goal,
Paraplue is for you. I will say, I've seen, you know,
all of these plants in real life through my time here,
and I think that I could safely say that Paraplue
Violet is my favorite, personal favorite of all of our
roses of shared in the line. And it's a color
that you just have to see to believe. It just
kind of glows in the landscape. It's you know, I
could describe it and you say, oh, viow that sounds nice.
You'll see pictures of it, you go, oh, that's pretty,
but when you actually see it in your garden and
see it in the light, it's it's really something else,
just absolutely gorgeous. And paraplue is the Dutch word for umbrella,
and so we named it so because of those big flowers.
You could almost use them as numbrella if you have
a small head, or at least wear them is a
fun hat. So really beautiful. And then we of course
have the pillars, which you mentioned. So the pillars also
came to us from the Netherlands and they are space
saving narrow columnar habits. Purple pillar is one of our
best sellers. You can also get white or red, which
they're in the roses of share and there's no true
red like you're gonna see in the tropical hibiscus. It's
more of a carminy pink red, but still quite a
nice color.
Speaker 1: So I love mine in my landscape. And by the way,
I'm pulling for the Netherlands in the World Cup. Oh
I i'd throw that. Good to know.
Speaker 2: And then finally another outlier we're ending with here, and
that is sugar tip rows of Sharon. And this is
a very cool plant. It is variegated foliage, which is
really nice because you know rosa Sharon comes out and spring,
you kind of got a long waist to wait until
it starts to flower. So this has really interesting variegated foliage.
And then the flowers come out. They're the most beautiful,
pure pink, and they're fully double. They're really like a
tight little powder puff and also completely sterile, so you
do not have to worry about sugar tip sewing itself
all over and making a maintenance nightmare for you. I
was going to talk about how to grow Rose of Sharon,
but I just got too excited about talking about all
of our beautiful varieties.
Speaker 1: Let's get to that in a segment four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got plenty more time to talk about that.
So for the moment, we're gonna take a break. When
we come back, we'll open up the mail eggs, So
please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we
know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
A team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
ensure they outperform what's already on the market for easycare, reliable,
beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style.
Look for proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container
at your local garden center, or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it is our
pleasure to help you with your garden questions, quandaries and
conundrums and of course celebrations, because you know it's the
time for garden celebrations. And I hear you've had quite
a couple of celebrations in your yard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll drop this into the mail bag. So hydranges
on a standard, yes, so tree form, tree form. I've
seen birds love them. So I have two of them.
One of them has cardinals that have created a nest
with eggs you can see the pictures here on YouTube,
and and an other a robin's nest. And it has
just been fun watching these birds.
Speaker 2: Must be noisy in your yard.
Speaker 1: It's noisy, but they love the high ranges.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you know, that's interesting because people don't
really realize how crucial shrubs in general, whether they're a
tree formers, shrubs or can be to housing birds because
you know, compared to trees, very often shrubs have narrower
branching angles, which can provide a more secure place for
them to build their nests. Of course, it's good to
have the diversity, you know, so you can get different
types of birds. But yeah, usually, you know, having those
tighter branches is a good thing. And I guess they
also probably like that it's a standard so they don't
have to worry about, you know, any cat or something
sneaking up on them climbing up. The trunk got wide
open there, so they got like a full alert perimeter
to keep their babies safe. So lucky you, you've been
truly blessed in this spring. So if you have a
question for us, you can reach out to us at
Gardening Simplified on air dot com. You can also leave
a comment on YouTube. We answer all of those questions
that you leave for us there. So what do we
got in the mailbag?
Speaker 1: Stacey? A question you've probably been asked off And Emily
writes to us my condo association twenty five Viburnum shrubs.
The leaves are being eaten for the third year in
a row. The leaves on some of our viburnums are
completely eaten. Now by the end of May, what do
you suggest to do with the shrubs? Should we cut
them down? Will they come back? Should we plan for
a replacement?
Speaker 2: Right, so you have Emily, I don't even need to
see a picture of it, although you did send pictures.
But you have the viburnum leaf beetle. And these are
very common and widespread, and the damage that they cause
is truly staggering. You know, just one single plant can
be gone in almost no time. But they have a
very distinctive kind of feeding pattern, and it's damaging. As
they are, they are actually surprisingly well easier said than done,
relatively easy to manage without chemicals. But you're not going
to do that now, So try to suffer through the
rest of the summer with your plans not looking their
very best. And then once the foliage drops in fall,
you're going to go out there and you're going to
look for their very distinctive egg laying sites. And they
are distinctive. So what the adult beetles do is they
excavate a little tiny hole into the stem of the
viburnum lay their egg in there, and then they take
that stuff that they excavated and mix it with spit
and dirt and patch that hole back up. So it
creates this very distinctive line of egg laying sites that
are very easy to recognize in fall or winter when
the foliage is off the planet. Don't even bother looking
for them now, it'll be too difficult. I mean, you
can if you want, but much much easier in the
fall and winter. And then you just snip those right
out and throw them away. Don't compost them, don't send
them to the dump. Please put these in a bag
and tie it up and send it far away and
bury it deep in the ground so they aren't you
aren't continuing to spread it. The cool thing, too, is
that these are going to be concentrated primarily on the
upper growth, so you don't have to like try looking
all over these because very often it's very large viburnums
that this happens too, So you don't have to, you know,
go on a wild goose chase all over your plant
looking for these egg laing sites. They are going to
be concentrated primarily, you know, in those upper tips of
the plant, and you can just snip those right out,
you will most likely be cutting away any flowers that
the plant had. But the important thing is you will
be massively disrupting the life cycle of these paths which
are clearly very very well established now. And if you
keep letting them, you know, perpetuate this life cycle. It's
just going to get worse and worse until they actually
kill the viburnums and then have to move on because
they actually put themselves out of house and home.
Speaker 1: And it's important to note, Stacey, that the damage in
spring in May is being done by the larvae that
have hatched from those eggs. Now, what about my favorite
Korean spice bush Carle's here.
Speaker 2: Right, So there are also resistant viburnums. So that's a
good strategy to do if you have viburnums that are
already being damaged. But if you are adding new viburnums,
you definitely want to look for the Asian species, So
Korean spice is a great option. Any of them that
are native to Asia are resistant because they actually developed
where the vibernum leaf beetle did. This is an invasive
pest our. Native American viburnums are have no defenses as
well as the Europeans, so European cranberry bush, American cranberry bush,
and aeroid viburnum viburnum and tatum are the most damage.
They are how most preferenced food sources for the viburnum
leaf beetles. So if you're adding a new one and
you know VLB is active in your area, look for
one of those distant varieties. But if you do already
have viburnams that are being eaten, just make sure that
you spend some time in winter just you know. Adriana
will put some pictures up in the YouTube version, but
you can also just you know, do an image search
and there is no mistaking the egg laying sites of
those beetles, so pretty easy to manage, and to do
so without chemicals. So I don't know, they're gross and
they cause a lot of damage, but at least there's
an easy solution here.
Speaker 1: You got it, Claudias. These cut plants are growing in
a shady area and every year are invaded by aphids.
Should I try to get rid of the aphids or
leave them?
Speaker 2: Be?
Speaker 1: Thank you and Stacy. I see here that the plant
is a Heliopsis. Yes, and if that's in the shade.
Doesn't that create some of the prime I mean, this
plant really loves sun.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so they so it is a sun loving plant.
But I have to tell you, I don't know that
I have ever seen Heliopsis growing without aphids. Yeah, I know,
that's sure really Yeah, so yeah, I'm sure that the
shade is adding to it because that stresses the plant,
you know, compared to growing in the sun like they want.
But my neighbors across the street have a huge stand
of it in full sun and they are just all
over that as well. I don't know what it is
about this plant specifically and aphids, but they're like peanut
butter and jelly or something.
Speaker 1: No, because it doesn't seem that sweet to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it doesn't have like kind of all the
classic features that make a plant susceptible to aphids. Yet
they love this plant. Now, normally they don't actually cause
that much damage. You know, you can have them on
your plant and yeah, they can look kind of gross,
but they don't usually influence the flowering. I ignore yeah,
I mean I definitely ignore them too. Now, I will
say my neighbors that I was just referencing who had
them in the full sun. One year in their yard
it did get so bad that they turned black. So
what can happen basically, is that the aphids they're sucking
the juices out of the plant. They're excreting them all
over the you know, the foliage as they feed, because
they don't really wander very far. They just kind of
hunker down and start, you know, sucking the juices out
of your plant, and mold can grow on that excrement
and turn the whole plant black. And that's gross.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gross.
Speaker 2: Even if the plant goes onto flour, you're just kind
of like you. So my recommendation to manage these again,
like the viburnum leaf feed a great news. You do
not need to spray anything. I would at this point,
you know, here we are early June, I would just
trim them back. I would cut back the growth where
the aphids are. I would straight up throw that away again,
just put it in a garbage a bag and throw
it in the trash, don't compost it, and the plant
will be delayed in its flowering a little bit, but
it will still flower. And then that way you don't
have to mess with anything. And again, if you're kind
of breaking that life cycle of the aphids, you know,
because they can overwinter in you know, the foliage that
falls and all of that. So by removing the bulk
of that population, you can help to again break that
pest cycle and have a less less of an issue
in the coming years. That's exactly what happened to my neighbors.
I said, just cut these back, don't worry about the flowers.
You will go get more flowers in a couple of weeks,
but let's just get these things out of here. So
it's a little bit of a sacrifice, but it's way
easier than spraying or anything like that. And if you
don't like the aphids, if you can't ignore them like
reckn I do, then this is your solution.
Speaker 1: And Claudia is right. Claudia refers to them as cut plants.
And I like growing them simply because I love cutting
the flowers for bouquets.
Speaker 2: Yeah summer, and they bloom so much. I mean, they flower,
They're like one of the longest blooming plants. I do
love them. I think that they're worth growing despite the
fact that they are extremely prone to aphids. But again,
it's not you know, some things like get aphids and
they get all like distorted and weird, sick looking.
Speaker 1: Which brings up a point I consider today we're talking
about hibiscus. I consider the tropical highbiscus to be an
aphid magnet.
Speaker 2: Now that I have never grown one in my garden,
but that doesn't surprise me. No, that doesn't surprise me, because,
especially in the garden center situation, you know one of
the things that.
Speaker 1: To watch and monitor them.
Speaker 2: Closely well, and you know they are tropical hibiscus. Everyone
wants a lot of flowers from them, so the growers
are really pumping them full of fertilizer and water and
just trying to get that big, beefy, robust plant. And yeah,
when you're injecting all of that resources into them, it
does make soft growth that makes them much more susceptible.
But you know, often I would say things that are
maybe problematic in a nursery or garden center situation, once
you get them home, it's a totally different thing. But yeah,
it's true any but again, some plants, like the Heliopsis,
they just get a fids. You can be doing every
single thing right and they're just covered in them. So
it's one of the great mysteries of the world. If
you know why, please leave a comment. I would really
love to hear it. I'm very curious myself. We're going
to take a little break and when we come back,
we're going to continue our talk on all types of
high biscus, So please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to
the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners
Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens
are trialed and tested by experts with your success in mind.
Learn more at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. As today we
talk about high biscus Stacey. I mentioned it in the
first segment, but I do have to tell you that
Hollywood hibiscus as a tropical high biscus. I love those plants,
the colors of the blooms, but one of the things
that really appeals to me about Hollywood hibiscus is the foliage.
It just seems to be darker and glossy and green
compared to well, some of the high biscus I've handled
in a garden center setting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really interesting observation, especially when I was
talking about the roses of Sharon in our line. The
foliage of hibiscus is not something that people typically select for.
They're so fixated on, you know, getting wacky colors in
the flowers or you know this, that or the other.
And it's very important, I think, especially for those of
us who grow tropical hibiscus as a container plant or
summer color, to have foliage that's again dark and glossy
and dark green and looks really great. Now. One thing
that's interesting about the Hollywood hibiscus, and we talked a
little b about this last week, we had a fertilizer show,
and I talked about hibiscus roses of Sharon being one
of the higher fertilizer needs plants. And it's a plant
that you might not even realize needs fertilizer until you
fertilize it, and you're like, whoa, that foliage looks kind
of sicky and yellow. So you would be tempted then
to you know, go crazy fertilizing Hollywood hibiscus, thinking, Hey,
if I pump this thing full of fertilizers, it's going
to give me so many flowers and it's going to
do great. But they actually and This is true of
all tropical hibiscus. So whether you have a Hollywood hibiscus
or another one, they're quite sensitive to high phosphorus in
the fertilizer and they will actually stop flowering. And it
can induce a nutrient deficiency, having so much phosphorus that
it can't metabolize other nutrients. It is interesting because you
would think that a blossom booster fertilizer, which you know
is one that's designed to have more flowers. You'd think
that would be exactly what you would want for a
tropical hibiscus, and you need to do the opposite. This
isn't our tags. So if you bought a Hollywood hibiscus,
that information is there for you. But yeah, you do
not want to use a blossom booster on your tropical hibiscus.
And I would say, then by extension any of your
hibiscus that you're just use something with low phosphorus.
Speaker 1: Okay, now this past a matter. As a matter of fact,
this past week, because I knew we were going to
be doing the show, I walked into my kitchen, I
grabbed a tape measure and I measured a dinner plate. Okay,
just to check. Most people would be able to tell
me it's ten inches, but it was ten inches. But
the point here is, Stacy, both you and I love
summarific perennial high biscuits, and we have to touch on
that for a moment because when they say you're going
to get eight to ten inch dinner plate blossoms on
these plants, you're going to get that. And then with
all the great new cultivars available, including the Summerific well
like Holy Grail with really dark near black leaves kind
of oval shaped. I love that black color, the black
foliage with these perennial high And when we did the
show on backdrops in the landscape, I showed a black
backdrop in my landscape and when the pink summerrific high
biscus blooms, boy that it just pops with that background.
So this is a plant that has so many wonderful
qualities to it, including the fact that they're native plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and they are North American natives. So this
is the high Biscus moschuotos that we were referencing at
the beginning of the show. And yet if you see
although of course, like many things, if you see Hibiscus
mashootos in nature, you'd probably be like, that's it. Because
of course, as we find those plants and select them
and try to make them something more like people would
want in their garden, then we get bigger flowers, we
get brighter colors, we get more flowers than you would see.
But it's still really interesting to kind of have that
connection of the plants and just have that extra sort
of ornamental value. And I do think that the foliage
on the summarific hibiscus is just such a nice strait
because much like the Rosa sharon, you're going to be
spending a lot of the season without flowers, so being
able to have attract to foliage. You know, from May
June July. My summer effics usually start flowering around like
the last week of July here in Michigan, depending on
our weather, So that's like a good three months where
you've only got foliage. And so that attractive, glossy, sometimes
even colorful foliage is really nice. And right now, you know,
my baptizia are blooming next to them, so it's kind
of a nice counterpart to have the maroon foliage of
the summerrifics with the yellow flowers of the Baptizia and
then of course, yeah, once those things start blooming, then
you know, summer's here.
Speaker 1: Wow. And I love how they emerge out of the
ground and if they're getting proper sunlight and water, how
fast they grow.
Speaker 2: They grow so fast. Yeah, and it's so you know,
it's one of those just really odd things to see
this plant that is truly one of the last perennials
to emerge in the landscape. And it comes out with
these teeny tiny little buds, you know, from the base
and you're like okay, and then like you turn around
and they're a foot tall. It just it grows so quickly,
and that's those thick roots. Now, we do have a
cousin of Hibiscus muschudos that is also native to North America,
a little less common to Fine as a garden plant,
but that is Hibiscus coccinius. Yes, and wow, you know,
I have to say, I do love my summarifics, but
there is a part of me that's a little tempted
to replace them with native Hybiscus coccinius because this is
my kind of plant. Right. It's massive, it's like six
to eight feet tall, and it has this like wild
looking foliage, and the flowers are nothing like the summarific
you know, where the Summarific are really developed to have
these overlapping petals that make a beautiful full circle. The
Hibiscus cocinius has these like, you know, rough flowers where
the petals are all separated, out of control, out of
control huge and the swamps. Yeah, now that's my kind
of my hesitation. It is native to swamps. Now. I
have been pleasantly surprised with the drought tolerance of the
sommarific Hibiscus. I mean I certainly would not. I mean
I am basically growing them with no supplemental water, and
we've had very droughty summers. I'm sure they would be
much taller in my garden if they got a little
bit of supplemental water. So I don't know if I
tried a Hibiscus coccinius, if it would simply, you know,
stay smaller because it wasn't getting enough water, or if
it would just be like, yeah, no, I'm not living here.
You keep me way too dry. I'm dead. But I
have to say I love the wild, unrestrained exuberance of
Hibiscus cuccinius.
Speaker 1: I agree I agree. Well, let's get back now to
the Hibiscus syriacus or the althea as you were talking
about in Plants on Trial, Stacey, and I wanted to
mention that when it comes to rows of Sharon, it
is one of the most frequent questions I have had
through the years, especially as we get into the summertime.
So I see these large, overgrown plants where the stems
at the base are naked and all the foliage is
at the top, the stems below aren't getting any light.
I tell people to chop them back, but I still
continuously see these plants out in the landscape like that. Stacy.
I've never met a rows of Sharon that doesn't like
a pruning.
Speaker 2: Shooters, you know, people tend not to prune them, but yeah,
especially if they're growing in less than ideal conditions, i e. Shade,
because though they can take some shade, and I'm sure
we've got plenty of listeners right now going, Well, my
rose of Sharon's growing in a lot of shade and
it still flowers. They can, but I think plants in
shade are going to be a lot more likely to
give because floppyep these are fast growing plants by and large,
so a lot of times when you have a plant
that grows more quickly, you do have to do some
pruning on it to make sure that that growth which
forms very quickly and doesn't hurt enough properly that it
doesn't become floppy. So, you know, how you prune your
rose of Sharon really depends on what you want your
rows of Sharon to do. You know, I have one
in my garden right now that it was just with
the house. I don't know how old. It is probably
fifty plus years old, and we are kind of training
it to go around the house. So my husband makes
some very deliberate pruning decisions and that helps to concentrate
the energy into fewer branches. If you were growing in
as a hedge, you might want to give it more
of a hedge type of because I mean, I do
think it makes a wonderful flowering hedge.
Speaker 1: Which brings up the point the pillar high biscus. I
think is fabulous for creating a hedge. Now real quickly,
let me ask you der resistance on rows of sharon,
hardiness for people who are in cold climates. These are
two benefits, right, Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, So I will occasionally get a little tiny
bit of deer browsing on our Rosa Sharon, not enough
to influence the flowers or anything like that, so I
don't really let it bother me.
Speaker 1: Have you seen I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean it's it's not even a big deal.
So they are I would say, deer resistant, which is great.
And then yeah, so they are hardy to USDA Zone five,
So sorry to our cold climate friends, No, we still
don't have a hardy Rosa Sharon for you you. But
the good news is that the summer effics are hardy
to USDA Zone four, so you are not hibiscusless. You
can still grow a hibiscus, just not Rosa Sharon. And
they're very heat tolerant all the way up to USDA
Zone nine, even USDA Zone ten, and they just you know,
they they're very versatile, easy to grow plants for any
of those areas. And I think that's one of the
reasons why they're just so beloved, because they just have
that summer vibe. But you know, like Hydrange's, which are
also beloved, they just don't have the you know, the
the the bloom anxiety that hydrangea can can can sometimes
develop in people. They just don't let you down.
Speaker 1: Well, I love my pillar rows of Sharon or al thea.
And after our show last week, Stacey gave some really
great advice and I took her advice because I walked
into my landscape and I saw that my pillar high
biscus foliage was just kind of pale. It wasn't that
dark green that I wanted. And I fertilized it. Ah,
So I'm hoping this all right anyhow, looking forward to
the heat of summer. I'm sorry. I love summer. I
love the heat of sorry, and so are your hibiscus Stacy.
This has been fun.
Speaker 2: It has been fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you, and thank you Adriana.
Thanks to you for watching us on YouTube, listening to
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