Romancing Hibiscus

I fell in love with hibiscus recently.

The flowers are large, usually about 8-18cm in width (in my garden, that is), with soft velvety petals of 5 or more, trumpet-shaped and distinctive long pistil & stamen. 

They come in many colors, red, pink, yellow, white and orange. With many hybrids and crossbreeds, the result is thousands of combination of amazing colors, sizes and shapes.

They are mainly grown for their showy blooms and some are believed to have medicinal properties. 

At times, some of the species bloom almost every day. Alas, these blooms don’t last long, unlike orchids, hibiscus smiles at you in the morning and by night fall, the flowers close up and drop off the next day. Some species, probably may last up to 2 days.

I first began to notice them a few months ago as we were headed south on the highways, the beautiful hibiscus took away the boredom of monotonous driving on the long grey ribbon of tarmac. 

On our return, Marc got me my very first pot of hibiscus, the national flower of Malaysia, the hibiscus rosa-sinensis (red), commonly found in many house gardens, along highways, parks & gardens.

That’s when my search for these beautiful blooms began…