I would like to tell you what to do when you start off developing your garden for your hibiscus. First you need to find a position where you know that the plants are going to receive a full days sun or at least a half days sun, which is desirable to produce the flowers which we are looking for from our plants, otherwise if you plant in too much shade you will get nice green leaves but very little flowers.

  A position where the plants will not receive a lot of strong winds, is desirable, but if you cannot find a position out of the wind perhaps you may have to think about growing a tall hedge to act as a windbreak, something like the earlier hibiscus varieties Albo Lacinatus or Landersii, which grow into tall bushes and if planted fairly close together, they will act as a very good wind break.

  Next we have to consider what the soil is like where we are going to make our garden, ideally you need a good sandy loam, for hibiscus to flourish, so if you do not have a sandy loam, and it is full of shale and clay and rocks, it would be advisable to consider making your garden above the existing soil. It is not advisable to plant hibiscus into the clay & shale, as the water does not soak away quickly enough, and if you dig a hole and fill it with some good soil, when it rains the water cannot soak away and the hole becomes a well and the poor plant drowns in too much water. Hibiscus roots like to have good drainage, and do not like wet feet, and more plants are lost from being planted in water logged soil, than any other way.

Rather than trying to make the poor soil productive by adding gypsum and compost, and working on the ground for ages before it is good enough to plant in, I built all my gardens up on top of the soil, firstly I removed the grass and then I built up the beds with boards, you could use bricks or sleepers, to about 14 inches and then filled the beds with a good sandy loam which I brought in, and to this I added some compost and manures and some blood & bone, and some dolomite which contains calcium and magnesium, and let it sit for a few weeks, to allow the dolomite to act and the compost become broken into humus by the microbial action in the soil.

  Now the garden is ready to receive the plants, which I had chosen earlier. This is another point you must consider, when buying plants, that you buy plants which are going to suit the position that you are going to plant them in, it is not much use buying a hibiscus for a garden near a gate or entrance to your house, if it is going to grow into a big tall spreading plant, which becomes a nuisance when it grows up because it blocks the entrance, and it is not much fun when it rains if the branches are protruding over the path and you get soaking wet as you try to get by, or try to select ones that will be the same size if you are planting a hedge, as it is not very good planting a low growing bush among tall growers.  

These 2 photos show new plants which have been planted into a rejuvenated garden beds a few weeks ago and with a stake inserted next to the bush and tied with some panty hose, to hold the plant from moving in the ground.	Another new plant which I have recently planted, showing the plant tied to a stake. Notice the sugar cane mulch which covers the soil to preserve moisture and stop weeds.

If possible try to grow hibiscus on their own and not with other plants, as they have a small fine surface roots which easily get broken if you are digging up other annuals, and they do not like to have to compete with other shrubs for food and water and light, which can happen if you plant other shrubs in the bed with them.

Some growers like to grow under palms or other types of trees, to help provide shade in the summer months, but they have very invasive roots, which use up all of the fertiliser and water you have given your hibiscus, so it means that you have to apply fertiliser and water more often to compensate for the loss to the trees.

If you have your plants in pots while you are waiting for the garden to be ready, make sure you watch the watering as they easily dry out very quickly in a small pot.

Now we are ready to plant, and I try to give a good space between each plant, if possible plant 3 ½ to 4 feet apart, so as the light can penetrate into the bushes, and when you are planting I like to dig the hole a little deeper than required and I put a handful of fertilizer in the bottom and cover it with a little soil and then plant the hibiscus, making sure that the top of the root ball is level with the top of the soil, the same as it was in the pot, and then I put in a good hardwood stake to support the bush as it grows, making sure that it is high enough to be able to tie to it as the plant grows, and I always use old pantyhose to tie the plant to the stake, as it stretches as the plant grows thicker, and does not cut into the bark as tie wire does, it is necessary to tie the plant as the fine hair roots that I spoke of earlier, get broken very easily if the plant is moving in the soil with the wind. Give the plant a bucket of water with some fish emulsion to help with shock from planting, and to make sure there are no air pockets in the soil, as well as watering the roots.

Now is a good time to apply plenty of good mulch to the garden, to aid in the preservation of moisture, and to stop weeds from growing. I usually make the mulch about 3 to 4 inches deep, and this gradually breaks down supplying humus to the soil, but make sure you do not allow the mulch to get too close to the trunk of the bush as this can introduce fungus and root and bark rot and diseases. I use sugar cane mulch, but any good mulch will do the job, and the worms just love the constant damp conditions and they do their job of aerating the soil and providing the necessary food for the fine surface roots of the hibiscus which are to be found just under the mulch covering

Tie a tag to the stake with the name and date of planting, as it is handy to know when you planted the bush in the years to come, and keep up a regular fertilizing program, and you should be rewarded with some beautiful flowers in the months to come, as the plants become established

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