The first Rose of Sharon that I ever noticed was a ragged-looking specimen that grew in an alley behind a gas station.\u00a0 Obviously a “volunteer,”\u009d the shrub grew in a patch of dirt that had emerged as the asphalt road surface crumbled away.\u00a0 At the time I thought the plant was ungainly and inelegant.\u00a0 Now that age and experience have opened my eyes, I know that the Rose of Sharon that I found so lacking was a spot of beauty in an ugly place, not to mention a model of hardiness and tenacity.<\/p>\n
My reward for being so judgmental about Rose of Sharon came six and a half years ago when we moved into our current house and found five of them on the property.\u00a0 Fortunately I was too busy at the time to do anything except let them grow and, eventually bloom.\u00a0 When they did, I was taken with the blooms, and with the fact that these free-flowering plants seemed to require nothing from me.\u00a0 Since then three have been moved, two have been pruned into standard or tree form, and all are doing well.\u00a0 I have come to love them.\u00a0 Hummingbirds find them irresistible as well.<\/p>\n
The traditional Hybiscus syriacus or Rose of Sharon is a member of the Malvaceae or Mallow family.\u00a0 The plants love full sun or very light shade, flourish in just about any soil, and bloom prolifically in mid to late summer.\u00a0 The fairly small, glossy leaves sometimes have three lobes, and the bright hollyhock-like flowers come in shades of white, pink, red, lavender or blue-purple. Sometimes the blossoms also have red or pink throats that contrast with the main flower petal color.<\/p>\n
Of course Rose of Sharon isn’t perfect.\u00a0 It can reproduce prolifically if left unchecked, producing an expanding grove of offspring within a few years.\u00a0 The shrubs also have a tendency to become “leggy”\u009d, with long branches and sparse flowers.\u00a0 The population problem can be corrected by shearing off spent flowerheads before the seed pods develop.\u00a0 Combat legginess by providing adequate light conditions and pruning the shrubs after flowering to keep the plants more compact and tidy.<\/p>\n
Or better yet, purchase a hybrid Hibiscus syriacus that has been bred to be less fertile and better mannered.\u00a0 The “Satin”\u009d series, bred in the Netherlands and France, feature lots of big single flowers.\u00a0 ‘Blue Satin,’ ‘Blush Satin,’ ‘Rose Satin’ and ‘Violet Satin’ all have red eye zones in the center of each flower.\u00a0 Another group of hybrids introduced by the United State National Arboretum and named after Greek goddesses, feature large blooms, and produce few or no seedlings.\u00a0 The National Arboretum’s Roses of Sharon include the white, single-flowered ‘Diana,’ ‘Helene,’ with red and white blooms, the pink and red ‘Aphrodite,’ and ‘Minerva,’ whose lavender flowers have red eye zones.\u00a0 ‘Minerva,’ which grows to only nine feet tall, is more compact than most other Roses of Sharon.<\/p>\n
Lovers of double-flowered plants have many cultivars from which to choose.\u00a0 The English-bred ‘Lavender Chiffon’ and ‘White Chiffon’ look almost like roses.\u00a0 If you like red, try the double or semi-double ‘Boule de Feu.’\u00a0 The name is French for “Ball of Fire.”\u009d<\/p>\n
There are also a couple of Roses of Sharon that have variegated foliage: H. syriacus ‘Purpureus Variegatus’ and H. syriacus ‘Meehanii.’\u00a0 The only downside to these varieties is that their flower buds never completely open.<\/p>\n
Hibiscus syriacus does not provide fall color, but its bare upright branches can lend structure to the winter garden.\u00a0 The dried seed pods also work well in winter arrangements.\u00a0 During the growing season a mass planting can form an attractive deciduous hedge that will also make your yard a magnet for hummingbirds and butterflies, not to mention the neighbors.<\/p>\n
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The first Rose of Sharon that I ever noticed was a ragged-looking specimen that grew in an alley behind a gas station.\u00a0 Obviously a “volunteer,”\u009d the shrub grew in a patch of dirt that had emerged as the asphalt road surface crumbled away.\u00a0 At the time I thought the plant was ungainly and inelegant.\u00a0 Now … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1765,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/1765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}