Sunday, November 30, 2008

Tropical Illusions


Winter is here. The calendar says it doesn't officially arrive for three more weeks, but the brisk winds and occasionally snow flurries don't pay attention to that. Neither do the two tropical hibiscus that are blooming in the house right now.


Both 'Reggae Breeze' and 'Carolina 'Breeze' are blooming, as they've done outside all summer. Blooms are fewer and both lose a fair amount of leaves when they're brought in for the winter, but they still have cheery orange faces that put a smile on mine.



'Carolina Breeze'


They'll eventually slow down to the point that there aren't any blooms at all because it's really hard to get enough natural light from even a south window during a northern winter. At that point, they'll be taken to the basement greenhouse, where they'll go semi-dormant in the cool temperatures. Next spring, they'll go back outside and they'll get all pretty with blooms again.

'Reggae Breeze'
(has the dark eye)



Not bad for plants that were purchased at KMart two years ago for five dollars each.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely tropical surprise on a cool rainy day! Gorgeous colors!

TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe said...

Wonderful x 4! You have really cought my favorite flower brilliantly Kylee. Tyra

Lisa at Greenbow said...

I used to have a hibiscus that I would bring in each year. It would drop all of its leaves then when spring came I would put it outside. It recovered well and bloomed up a storm.

WiseAcre said...

I had to go and look up name for it's meaning and found:

It gets its name from the Greek words Hibiscus meaning "mallow" and rosa-sinensis meaning "rose of China"

Why? Because I was had the impression of a snout when looking at the pics. OK so I am bit odd.

I'm glad you stopped by for a visit. I needed a reminder to start making the rounds again after the summer blog break.

Brenda Pruitt said...

Oh, that's such a luscious color too! I can't wait for Robert to get my French doors finished so I can have that kind of bloom inside!
Brenda

Kylee Baumle said...

perennialgardener ~ That's just what I think when I see them here!

Tyra ~ Glad you like my photos of your favorite flower! :-)

Lisa ~ That's exactly what mine do, Lisa. I've got four all together. One is a Chinese Lantern type, one has large leaves, and these two have the small leaves. I don't know much about them, really.

WiseAcre ~ Snout as in nose, or snout as in butterfly? Either way...LOL. Thanks for the word origin info! And really, I totally understand about the visiting blogs thing. It seems like this summer it was so difficult to get to many blogs to read what was going on in other gardens while still keeping up with mine and my blog! The garden blogging world has exploded! But that's a good thing... :-)

Brenda ~ Oh, you're going to have so much fun with indoor plants, aren't you? :-)

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