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The garden hibiscus is a popular ornamental shrub that displays its gorgeous blooms all summer long. Read about the advantages and disadvantages of planting a hibiscus hedge.

In a nutshell

  • Garden hibiscus sufficiently hardy for hedge
  • many large funnel flowers in bright colors
  • long flowering period between July and September
  • but light growth and extremely late shoots
  • Alternative: mixed flowering hedge with different species

Benefits of a hibiscus hedge

Long flowering period

Probably the best reason for planting a hibiscus hedge is the numerous large funnel-shaped flowers that the plants show from July. Depending on the hibiscus species and variety, these can be purple or blue, pink, red, white, and even yellow or orange. Striking features are not only the bright colors of the flowers, but also the tube-shaped stamens with the protruding three-branched style. In addition, hibiscus flowers for a very long time: If you clean the faded flowers regularly, you can admire the flowers well into September. A hedge of hibiscus bushes also means that you can look forward to a particularly lush bloom.

Good cutting tolerance

Hibiscus is considered to tolerate pruning well. This property is immensely important for hedge plants, since sooner or later they will always have to be limited in their growth - if only because they are growing over the neighbor's garden fence. In fact, you even have to cut hibiscus every spring before it buds, so that it forms strong new shoots and grows denser.

Tip: In very cold winters, the hibiscus can freeze back. In this case you cut it back radically, but then you have to wait a few years before the plant has reached a stately size again.

Disadvantages of a hibiscus hedge

slow growth

The very slow growth of the plants speaks against planting a hedge of hibiscus bushes: they only grow between 15 and 30 centimeters a year under optimal conditions and good care. However, it is more likely that the annual increase will be significantly lower. You have to wait several years for a young plant to grow into a stately bush two meters high and just as wide. To solve this problem, you could buy older plants with a height of 80 to 100 centimeters for a corresponding price. However, this is not only expensive, you still do not have a privacy screen.

Lack of privacy protection

In general, the lack of privacy protection remains a problem in later years, when the plants have reached an acceptable growth height and width. On the one hand, hibiscus not only grows slowly, but also rather sparsely and lightly - the plants will not achieve a nice, dense hedge growth even with pruning measures. Other reasons that allow curious looks through the hedge into the garden:

  • Hibiscus is deciduous
  • Hedge sheds its leaves in autumn and remains bare over winter
  • extremely late budding, often not until June
  • means in May / June the hedge is still without leaves

Late sprouting in particular could be perceived as annoying: hibiscus is often the last garden plant to show the first signs of green leaf buds.

A hibiscus hedge does not grow densely enough to offer optimal privacy.

Intensive care necessary

In addition, the hibiscus is anything but easy to care for. Plant in a good spot with plenty of sun and fresh, humus-rich soil. Make sure you have adequate drainage, as the shrub does not like drought, but neither does excessive moisture or even wetness. Ensure good care so that the plants grow and thrive healthily:

  • Water young plants regularly
  • Also water during dry periods, otherwise flower buds fall off
  • fertilize regularly (e.g. with a long-term fertilizer for flowering plants)
  • Cut and thin out in spring

In addition, young hibiscus plants need winter protection from mulch, leaves and / or brushwood - anyway only the garden hibiscus like some varieties of rose mallow are considered to be sufficiently hardy. The plantlets only develop winter hardiness over the course of the next few years.

Tip: To ensure that the hibiscus blooms profusely and keeps developing new flowers, you should regularly snap off faded ones. Otherwise, the joy of flowering will quickly diminish.

Experiences with hibiscus hedge

Hibiscus bushes delight every gardener with their colorful flowers. But are the plants suitable for a hibiscus hedge? Benefit from the experiences that other hobby gardeners have already had with a hibiscus hedge and its care. We have researched for you.

Notice: For reasons of better legibility, small spelling mistakes (spaces, transposed letters, etc.) in the quotations have been corrected. The exact sources are linked under the indication of the respective forum.

I have a 10 m hibiscus hedge. [… ] Yes, she is bald in winter. But nobody in the street (and as far as I know in the city) has such a splendor of flowers! It was important to me to get an uncut hedge, I don't really need privacy at this point in winter. Planted in the summer of 2005 as approx. 20 cm high plants, some of them are now almost 2 m high. […]

Source: www.gartenforum.de; User: fly a plane; Date: 07/21/2008

[… ] However, I would never plant a hibiscus hedge. As beautiful as the plants are. They grow relatively slowly - mine reached this width after 5 years. In addition, they only get leaves very late. This year the first leaves only arrived in June, so that there is no privacy protection until then. Get hibiscus as a single plant and use something else for the hedge. There are many fast-growing, green and flowering shrubs.

Source: www.hausgarten.net; User: Fanny; Date: 09/01/2008

Hibiscus sprout very late. If the whole garden is already green, the hibiscus consists of only a few branches. [… ] By the way, a hibiscus hedge does not become particularly dense.

Source: www.gartenforum.de; User: today's sun; Date: 07/05/2011

frequently asked Questions

Which species are suitable for a hibiscus hedge?

The hardy garden hibiscus, also known as shrub hibiscus, is particularly suitable for use as a hedge. The names shrub hibiscus and garden hibiscus are also common and refer to the same plant, which has the botanical name Hibiscus syriacus. All other species and varieties are not or not sufficiently hardy for garden planting.

Are garden hibiscus and rose mallow the same?

No, these are different species, but they all belong to the genus Hibiscus (Hibiscus) within the mallow family (Malvaceae). The garden hibiscus refers to the Hibiscus syriacus species, while “rose mallow” can mean the marsh marshmallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) or the Chinese rose mallow (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis). Both species are not hardy here, which is why they are cultivated as houseplants, as in the case of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis.

Can you combine hibiscus with other shrubs?

Instead of a pure hibiscus hedge, you can also combine individual shrubs with other flowering hedge plants, thus minimizing the disadvantages. Weigela, forsythia, various wild roses, deutzia or farmer's jasmine are suitable. Lilacs or summer lilacs are also well suited for such mixed flowering hedges.

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Garden design