My first try at Lady Baltimore Hibiscus. We live in Southern Texas, near San Antonio. The first part of June we saw the most wonderful huge purple flowers from one plant. By the time we returned home in two weeks, no more blossoms. The person watering the plants outside, said the bush had been loaded with blossoms; I can see the empty stems where the blossoms were.
We had fertilized the plants when they were freshly planted in late March. Just wondering if the bush tired itself out and might need more fertilizer? Also, one of the Lady Baltimore plants was an older plant we got from a nursery, and it has had no blossoms. though the person caring for the plants while we were gone said that she saw lots of blossoms, but they all fell off as buds. Would it be wise to split the plant this time of year? Both the hibiscus plants are in fairly large pots. The tropical hibiscus is doing fine and continues to have flowers.
Thanks for any help you might afford these lovely plants.
Patt
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uniquegardenplants
- Full Member
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:36 pm
- Location: North Carolina
Hi Patt, your hibiscus may be a bit tougher to maintain in containers due to the fact that they will dry out faster and lose nutrients faster than being in the ground. Hibiscus are heavy feeders in the summer months and they will need a consistant dose of nutrients throughout the growing season in order to maintain a robust and heavily budded plant.
I'm sure others can recommend different types of fertilizers from organic to non-organic, ..... but if you want to speed things up a bit, you could use a simple Miracle Gro hose end feeder (one application about every 10 days), that delivers around 100-200 ppm of liquid fertilizer (already pre-mixed), straight to the root system. Your hibiscus will take up the nutrients very quickly and you should see significant stem growth and bud formation in no time. You can feed throughout summer and then taper off as you approach fall time. With your long and hot Texas summers, you may get another cycle of flowers popping out before fall. Hope this helps!
I'm sure others can recommend different types of fertilizers from organic to non-organic, ..... but if you want to speed things up a bit, you could use a simple Miracle Gro hose end feeder (one application about every 10 days), that delivers around 100-200 ppm of liquid fertilizer (already pre-mixed), straight to the root system. Your hibiscus will take up the nutrients very quickly and you should see significant stem growth and bud formation in no time. You can feed throughout summer and then taper off as you approach fall time. With your long and hot Texas summers, you may get another cycle of flowers popping out before fall. Hope this helps!