Yes, I grow the white, light pink and a red that has a tiny flower. I have them trained as small trees. I also have the standard larger flowered red. I haven't seen an orange yet. :o)

Katkin,

I saw the orange one at the Florida Botanical Garden in their butterfly garden. It was large just the like standard red plant. I could have sworn that I took an image of it, but alas I can't find it at the moment.

Darren

Darren, if you ever want to take a road trip to see me, I can give you some cuttings of the turk's caps I have.

Where is the Florida Botanical Garden? :o)

I had to look this up before commenting. I thought you were talking about Turk's Turban (Clerodendrum indicum), which I can say from personal experience that I do not care for one bit. My neighbors have Clerodendrum indicum in their yard and they are not gardeners. They rarely come out of their house during the day and often just let their yard get overgrown. As such I get birds and other critters and sometimes just random drops of the seeds in my yard and this stuff quickly starts to grow. It's so stupidly invasive that I want to just walk into their yard with a bottle of Horticultural Vinegar and douse the plants with the stuff.

Turk's Cap on the other hand, looks quite lovely. And while not native, it has become naturalized to Florida and doesn't appear to be classified as truly invasive. I will have to do some more research into this and see if it will be a suitable addition to my yard/garden. Thanks for bringing this one to my/our attention.

Katkin,

Florida Botanical Gardens is in Largo, right in the middle of Pinellas County and just a couple of miles from the beaches.

http://www.flbg.org/ It is free.

Thanks for that offer, where do you live? Sorry I know you've said before but I forget easily.

Leekle2ManE,

I understand the confusion. I went to Crowley's Nursery today and inquired about them and was told they had all kinds of colors only to find out it is a nickname for another plant. It is in the Mallow family and basically looks like an unopened red hibiscus bloom. Scientific name if I ever learn them is Malvaviscus penduliflorus.

Crowley's had so many fantastic plants but of special note were their passion flowers. They had quite a few of the corky stem, edulis, incarnata, etc. None and I mean none, were dormant. A lot of them were outdoors and blooming and fruiting. That is the Nursery! Thanks to all those who mentioned that nursery earlier in another thread. OK, getting off on a tangent.

Darren

Darren, I am in Port St Lucie on the east coast. The plant I have is the malvaviscus penduliflorus in red, white, blush pink and small flowered red. :o)

Darren, I've had this discussion before and unfortunately I'm still rather confused. I think the most common type that we have in Florida is usually called Malvaviscus penduliflorus. I like that name because it accurately describes the flowers that hang down. I have three of these plants, all are in full bloom now. They are all red. These are the most common types in Florida.

I also have three red turks cap that have flowers that are turned up towards the sun. These are much smaller. The name I have for these is Malvaviscus arboreus v. drummondii.

They get to be around four feet by four feet or so. I'm a hummingbird gardener and the hummers seem to prefer these bushes, but they also visit the penduliflorus.

I also have a pink arboreus v. drummondii. It has the same characteristics as the red. I'm not sure of the penduliflorus but the drummondii have several different colors, including white ones. They also have different named cultivars that are red. I think the one I have is called "Big Paul."

Anyway, I like all of them and the hummers like them also. They are visited by sulfur (yellow) and skipper butterflies.

Tom,

I got my information at these two locations, but as you can see, Crowley's has a different scientific name attached.

http://www.floridata.com/ref/m/malv_pen.cfm

Note there are three colors show at Crowley's
http://crowleynursery.net/alpha_h.htm

When I was there yesterday, they only had the red to show me.

The confusion is always when the non scientific names are used. These Turks Cap appear to be similar plants however as you noted, some bloom upright and others are pendulums. The penduliflorus look like a typical unopened red single hibiscus with only a little of the pistil sticking out of the plant. Those arboreus have much shorter petals on the blooms and the pistil sticks out much farther as if it was an unopened chinese lantern hibiscus. What also makes it harder, is both seem to have the typical hibiscus type colors, red, white, pink.....

Ahhh, I must have four of five butterfly bush in my yard, none of them the same. I had such a difficult time when people would tell me to buy a butterfly bush when I was starting my garden earlier this year.

Oh BTW, both the red and orange turks cap at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo are growing together and they are probably 8-10' tall.

Darren

The ones I have are all 8 to 10 feet tall as well. I have made them into small trees by leaving one leader to be a trunk and allowing them to branch when I like their height.

My parents have both the pink and red varieties growing together in one large clump where it can be seen from both the family room and one of the bedroom windows. Right now they are about as tall as the gutters of their house and are in full bloom. The clump is at least as wide as it is tall. It's neat to sit at the windows and watch different species of birds hop around inside the bushes looking for bugs. The cardinals in particular are frequent visitors.

I have a small white turks cap that is only about 2 to 3 feet tall and sprawls out a lot. It's growing in an area that for the most part is only watered by the rain and is still going strong after three or four years in the ground. The flowers are about a quarter the size of the red ones.

Kara

all over deland, care free plant........i keep my token plant along with my few beautyberries....(sic) heard them called "santas" hat."

Yes, sometimes they are called "Christmas Hibiscus" because they are in full bloom now.

Our warm weather appears ready to change this weekend...

They are also called sleeping hibiscus, because the flower never opens. :o)

It is a plant (red variety) that was plentiful in our St. Pete neighborhood in the 1950s when I was a child. I would pick the flower and suck the sweet juice out of the end. Made it into a (girl) doll by putting a twig through for arms and an Australian Pine seed pod (is that what they are called, those little serrated edged squarish balls?) for a head, and added the Turk's cap. The pines froze in the 1960s - until then they, also, were all over town. (Did the Turks Caps freeze too, or just get replaced with "landscaping"?) Also, we smashed the Turks Cap flowers for their red color in "making" pretend ice-cream by grinding rocks with liquid against concrete curb. (Sounds like Third World child's play? Well, TV and AC were pretty scarce here then. ð )

When I was a kid it was also sometimes called cigarette plant or lipstick plant, although there are other plants with those names.

I call them "sleepy hibiscus," too. These things are ridiculously easy to root from cuttings. I have a huge hedge of them next to my driveway, two islands in the front yard and another that shades my front porch from the western sun. All were grown from cuttings and one was transplanted as a mature plant because it got too big for the original space. They can get really huge. A hard freeze will kill them to the ground but they come right back from the roots in the spring. If you don't mind them getting big, they can be a real carefree plant.