... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Hibiscus seedling!!!

Remember the crazy tricks I had to pull to get Hibiscus grandiflorus and the Hibiscus moscheutos hybrid 'Blue River II' to bloom in sync - trashcan photoperiod shortening and repeated disbudding, respectively. Well I did end up with a few pods worth of seeds. I split the small batch in half and tried to germinate some inside (no luck) and the rest went in the ground for overwintering. Hibiscus seeds here always seem to have a high percentage of weevil eaten ones.

Well... only one seed came up outside but that's enough to make me super-happy!!!
It has the reddish leafstalks and veins of its grandiflorus pollen parent. Hopefully this'll be the start of a line of fragrant hardy Hibiscus that will bloom earlier than grandiflorus does here (a few days before frost).

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