Hardy Hibiscus in Northern California

[mxcolin]

Anyone have a source for hardy hibiscus in Northern California? I’m struggling to find anything online or any nursery that carries them. 

[Silas_Sancona]

On 5/29/2020 at 4:55 PM, mxcolin said:

Anyone have a source for hardy hibiscus in Northern California? I’m struggling to find anything online or any nursery that carries them. 

Are you looking for winter deciduous species / varieties?  Seeing you listed your area as 9b, would figure you should be able to grow traditional Hibiscus w/ out issue..  Regardless,

Hibiscus, moscheutos, H. lasiocarpos, H. laevis are among the nicest of the more "Perennial" hardy Hibiscus species. There are several others as well but they tend to be more wispy looking and not so " tropical" in appearance.. Fun to grow regardless..  The 3 species i mentioned first should be fairly easy to locate. Thinking H. lasiocarpos grows in various spots along the Delta in and southwest of Sacramento ( noted from those areas on Inaturalist, other guides involving California natives ) Other 2 are primarily found back east, so check around any online nurseries that may ship out to CA. from that region of the country.. H. moscheutos, and cultivars of it should be pretty easy to track down.  While these do generally die back in winter, they're spectacular when flowering thru the summer/ fall.

Another not so well known, nice ..but smaller flowered "hardy" Hibiscus worth looking for is Hibiscus martianus, aka Heart leaved Hibiscus.. Not easy to track down though..

As far as traditional Hibiscus, you might check out Hidden Valley Hibiscus ( Located in Hemet ). Regarding overall hardiness/ cold tolerance, the easiest /toughest are those with single Red, White, or Yellow Flowers.. The multi-colored / multi-petaled cultivars can be a bit more tender, touchy in general.. 

With all species, go easy with applying Phosphorus, and heavier on Potassium when you fertilize. Many issues w/ them involve being fed way too much Phos. ( and/ or Nitrogen ) and not enough K. Hidden Valley has a good article on fertilizing them properly.

Hope this helps..

Nathan

Edited June 2, 2020 by Silas_Sancona
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[mxcolin]

I already grow a bunch of tropical Hibiscus, I'm all good on that front :-)

I really want some of the perennial hardy species but it seems difficult to buy them here. Thanks for the information I'll do some more digging.

[Silas_Sancona]

5 hours ago, mxcolin said:

 

I really want some of the perennial hardy species but it seems difficult to buy them here. Thanks for the information I'll do some more digging.

Agree, Not sure why you don't see many, -if any- of the non-traditional Hibiscus types offered more in nurseries in California.. Would fit into most landscapes just as well as the others. 

If it comes down to no online nursery being able to ship live plants to California, you could always start all of those species from seed. Generally pretty quick growers so not something that would take years to reach flowering size. Saw several listings for the 3 species i'd first mentioned over on e-Bay when i did a casual search.

 

[Chester B]

Oregon nurseries carry lots of them.  You should do mail order from here, I don't think there are any restrictions on shipping them into CA.

[mxcolin]

In the end I found some from Proven Winners. I've ordered 5, hopefully see them in July sometime.

[Silas_Sancona]

29 minutes ago, mxcolin said:

In the end I found some from Proven Winners. I've ordered 5, hopefully see them in July sometime.

 Saw listings for a nursery ( or two) that grows the native H. lasiocarpos in/ near Sacramento while looking around more yesterday as well ( Calscape nursery listings on their web page ).

Edited June 4, 2020 by Silas_Sancona
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[PaulRat]

Urban Tree Farm