Hi all, I just bought a beautiful 18" tall hibiscus. I don't really have any prime space for it to get full light (my citrus get that space) so what I did is I repotted it and put it in my bedrom which has a Northeast facing window. The problem is it only gets about 30 mins. of direct sun per day. To fix this, I bought a hundred watt full spectrum bulb and put it in a clip-on desk lamp with a bendy neck, clipped it on to the bottom of the stand and have the light facing up at the plant. The light will be on for ten hours a day plus the blinds will be open with indirect sunlight coming in all day. My question is, with the light shining up at the tree will it have any negative effect on it's growth vs. if the light was shining down on the tree? For example, will the tree eventually start to grow and even bend towards the light below it? Also, would a string of Christmas lights strung throughout the tree instead provide a better light source? Or am I just dreaming? Thanks.
not sure about the christmas lights but i would think those lights might make the leaves dry out faster and the plant would start to grow towards the light of the lamp is it a tropical or hardy hibiscus?
I'm not really sure if it's hardy. How would I tell? The only thing it said when I bought it was hibiscus, it didn't have a type or anything.
Where did you get the plant at? I am going to guess it is a tropical hibiscus as that is most common. Your plant needs high humitiy(small humidifier, tray with pebbles and some water under the plant) But make sure the plant does not sit in the water. If the light is shining up under the plant I would think that the plant will bend towards the light. Also a 100w bulb with really dry the plant out fast. I would go to Wal mart, Lowes or Home depo and get a strip light and mount that on the wall or the celing with chain or rope to lower the light closer to the plant. Right now my hibiscus plants are outside, soon I will be moving them in for the winter then I have a humidifier (you can get these really cheap, around $20) and strip light. My plants have alway done well with this set up.
Tropical hibiscus looks like this. http://images.google.com/images?cli...ures&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi It produces leathery evergreen leaves. The other two common ones, H. moscheutos and H. syriacus do not. The latter two also do not come in warm colors like orange and yellow.
I am in PA too, and my hibiscus is tropical, I also have a light on it, and he does fine, but soon as the good weather is here he has to go to the outside to get strong again, it never blooms during the winter time, I think he is in some kind of distress, I put Christmas lights on it and I think it doesn't mind at all this is the third year I have it inside and taking care of it during winter, and I am retired so my house temperature is in the 50 during winter not too much money for heat. So I guess the C.L. give it some warm. Good Luck..
