The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be holding their next meeting on Wednesday, March 18, 7 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. It will be nice to get together and “talk gardening” again as we look forward to the new gardening year! New members are always welcome, and you don’t have to be a member to come to the meeting.
Get your Hawaiian shirt out and let’s take a little floral holiday to a tropical place and talk about hibiscus! Some very dear friends shared some photos with us of their hibiscus plants, looking glorious with big bright blooms in beautiful colors! These two enthusiastic gardeners enjoy growing hibiscus plants as well as other exotic plants like orchids, and like all people who do things very well, they make it look easy! But I have much to learn!
So I decided to do some homework and learn about hibiscus plants and how to take care of them. Did you know that hibiscus belongs to the mallow family, and this is a big family with hundreds of plant cousins. Hibiscus are tropical and subtropical plants, but luckily for us they don’t mind growing in containers here! The flowers are big and showy, in bright hues of red, orange, pink, yellow, and white, even certain hibiscus varieties with flowers that change color once in bloom.
I learned that hibiscus like at least six hours of sunshine a day, so a south or east window would be their favorite. We need to be careful not to overwater them, and we must be sure they have good drainage. But when they are working hard and blooming, they will need more water. And guess what, they like to grow in a container, and like their roots to be cozy: we might think they are slightly root-bound, but they don’t mind this.
We can fertilize them in spring and summer with a fertilizer that is high in potassium, but they will not need any fertilizer in the winter. (Just a refresher: when you see three numbers on a container of fertilizer, the first is for nitrogen, promoting root growth; the second is for phosphorous, promoting foliage; and the third is for potassium, promoting good basic health for the plant.)
The plants do not have a lot of pest problems, although we do need to watch for mealybugs. If we see them, we should trim away any part of the plant that is infected, then wash the plant gently with a water spray.
All in all, the hibiscus is a very good-natured plant, not overly demanding in what it needs, and then when it is happy it rewards us with those stunning flowers!
In the summer, we could give our hibiscus plants a vacation and take them outside. They’d look beautiful on any patio or deck, and an added bonus is that they attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
If you are really feeling exotic, you can even buy hibiscus tea, which is a beautiful ruby color when brewed, and is high in vitamin C.
Hibiscus can carry a message, too. In the language of flowers, a hibiscus means a perfect woman or wife, or admiration of beauty. But the hibiscus flower is also a somber reminder that things like beauty, success and fame pass away! One more: if a woman wears a hibiscus flower over her left ear, she is involved with someone. But if she wears the flower over her right ear, she is available!
Visit the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca, and have a lovely week!
