Tropical hibiscus plant in Eileen’s Ocean Grove garden. August 19, 2015 © click to enlarge.
By Eileen and Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
Two years ago our garden columnist Miss Pegi (Costantino) wrote about bringing hibiscus plants indoors for the winter. This is what she said in Blogfinger on November 2013:
“The hibiscus is a tropical plant which can be brought in for the winter, provided it doesn’t freeze to death before you do so. Last week we had, according to Pegi, a “hard frost” in the Grove, but many of her plants did survive including begonias and zinnias. Many homeowners who have hibiscus in their gardens simply buy new plants each spring, but that can be expensive. If you bring them into the house, you can pinch off the buds and place the plant in a cold environment such as a garage just to let it go dormant and keep it alive till spring and save money.
“Or, you can bring it in to enjoy the blooms, even though that might weaken the plant for the spring. The hibiscus must be placed in a sunny window. Don’t water it too much—“keep it on the dry side.” If it is near a source of heat such as a radiator, you might have to water it more often. Pegi says, “Do not fertilize it during the winter.”
“If the plant gets some yellow leaves, “pluck them off.” In the spring you can then buy new plants or cut back the winter plant, put back into the garden and fertilize.”
Eileen followed Pegi’s advice and brought in her mandarin orange (with magenta centers) colored specimen to sit in a west facing window and receive only water for the winter. She brought the plant back into the garden in the spring of 2014 where it did fine. In 2015, sitting indoors during the bad winter, the plant had a few indoor flowers, but it lost quite a few leaves.
However, when she put it back in the garden it responded dramatically with higher growth, dense foliage and flowers all spring and summer.
We expect a new column from Miss Pegi very soon.
PATTY GRIFFIN Something worse than faded flowers—-“Faded Love” from the album Remembering Patsy Cline.