I planted a cranberry hibiscus this year, and it has developed white spots on the leaves. The foliage is also becoming very sparce. Can anyone give me some advice to help improve the plant health? Here are a few photos of the plant if that helps.
Thank you
Hi Warren,
Thanks for including photos - that helps a lot. It looks like the plants have already flowered and set seed. Once the cranberry hibiscus flower, they typically don’t invest much energy into new leaves and it’s typical for the canopy to become sparse. Were your plants lush before flowering? Or were they sparse before flowering as well?
Cranberry hibiscus is a shrub but needs to be replanted every 9-18 months depending on seasonality and intensity of harvest. If you don’t harvest it before the seeds mature, it readily reseeds itself. It may be time for this planting to be removed or cut back. Sometimes, when shrubs are cut back (typically right after harvesting seeds or right before rainy season) they come back with new energy.
As far as the white spots go, we get that on our plantings here at the global farm as well. I’ll ask our farm manager if he knows what causes it!
Stacy,
Thank you for the advice. It was a lush canopy while it was flowering. I’m going to let the seeds fall and hope for more plants coming up in the spring, then I’ll transplant them to new locations, and prune the mother plant back.
I look forward to hearing what the farm manager says about the white spots.
Thanks again for the quick response. It’s going to be a while until I learn the way things grow here in Florida. It’s a lot different than Wisconsin…lol
Have a great day.
