Hibiscus

2006/OCTOBER/16

Beautiful flower on the hibiscus this morning, and most encouragingly some new leaf growth. The temperatures have dropped but its a relief that the plant is still growing despite the leaf damage the pest caused. Hopefully a nice long growing season from next spring will mean a lot more flowers like this and a bit more colour in the front garden at this time of year. Would be nice if the hibiscus could contrast better with the cosmos near the letterbox.

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Hibiscus Hibiscus Hibiscus Hibiscus Cosmos

2006/SEPTEMBER/20

Bugger. Just got back from Tokyo last night and checked to see how the Hibiscus was doing, and it ain't doing good. The new leaves have been wrapped up, and all the others have been eaten. Almost no leaves unaffected by one or the other problem. It has to be some kind of caterpillar. New buds coming through, but no unaffected leaves left. I got out some paper towel and physically removed the eggs from the "rollies", hopefully that should allow enough photosynthesis to let the plant kick on a little longer before the temperatures plummet.

2006/SEPTEMBER/13

Hibiscus being eaten by pest
2006/SEP/13
No idea what they are, but there is an insect problem. Something (probably spiders?) has taken a liking to the hibiscus. None of the other plants nearby seem to have the same problem, but what is happening is that the leaves are being wrapped into cylinders with something similar to a web, and eggs stuck to the threads inside the cylinder thus formed. Each one looks like a not particularly well rolled cigarette. About a third of the leaves are affected, and in my chronic ignorance I'm wondering how it impacts on the plant? Not a very good photo unfortunately, snapped with the new cellphone.

2006/AUGUST/03

Its hot, but the hibiscus is doing fine. Needs a fair bit of watering but looks as though being adjacent to that hot wall isn't too bad for it. The flowers come and go in a blaze of colour. On average when a flower blooms it is dropped within 2 days. Lots of dead ones lying around now, and sorry the photos suck. I'm off to Aomori for the Nebuta festival and to Hirosaki for the Neputa festival, then travelling in Hokkaido until mid-August, so I'm leaving the plant to its fate. Hope it doesn't die, because in full bloom the flowers are quite pretty.

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Hibiscus Hibiscus Hibiscus Hibiscus

2006/JULY/02

Decided to dig out the extremely dead plant sitting under the letter box - sorry Mum, but whatever it was just didn't like where it was. Went down to the garden center to see what could work there, spent a bit of time looking at olive trees for a friend, then eventually decided on a hibiscus. The main botanical reason for choosing a hibiscus to plant here was err, because I'd heard of them before. I don't know anything about hibiscus at all really. Dug deeper than usual, used all the rest of the potting mix, watering daily. If it survives the summer should be set.

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Hibiscus Hibiscus

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