What kind of hibiscus do you have? Mine is slowly taking over the entire "yard" and has no space beneath for a skirt. Do I just have a different variety or is it a mutant with thuggish intentions?

It is at the head of my flowerbed and I created the bed to curve around it. Part of the reason is to create an additional area of texture and part of it is to fight the grass encroachment. I think I need to dump some compost on it though...in looking at pics I can tell it is a lot smaller than it used to be.

How about portulaca under your hibiscus? What color is your hibiscus? A grouping of various colors of portulaca would look really nice there and add a point of emphasis at the head of your bed.

Love your chaste tree, Lisa. How old is it?

Mary

Mary, I'm afraid it is too shady for portulaca. My house faces north and the tree does cast quite a bit of shade.

I tend to think of my chaste tree as "new"...but I guess it really isn't! I made that bed after the ice storms in 2001? took out my elm tree. I'd guess it is probably 10 years old, give or take a year or two. I love it, but it does take some maintenance in terms of trimming every year.

Lisa, If you plant zuchetta in that bed, you won't have to trim your chaste tree because the zuchetta rampicante will climb it and bury it, and it will look like you have a new sort of tree with big, broad leaves that produces oddly-shaped fruit. Also a bonus? It will sprawl and crawl and bury the grass underneath the shade of its leaves, so you won't have to mow.

If you fill compelled to plant a fast-growing plant underneath your hibiscus, just keep the pruners handy. (grin)

Every C. moschata plant I've ever grown has reached 20-30' in length. Where are you going to put all that? I have let them climb trees, and then it freaks out people driving up the road when they see huge pumpkins and winter squash hanging in the trees high above the ground.

I'd be concerned that the zuchetta will bury all your ornamental plants beneath its crawling and sprawling foliage.

Dawn

"it freaks out people driving up the road when they see huge pumpkins and winter squash hanging in the trees high above the ground."

Don't give me ideas. lol

HAHAHA Dawn, that's pretty funny. Yeah, I thought about their rambunctiousness. Sweet potato vine it is, I guess :) I want to put some SPV over on the side of the house too where I don't want to put wood mulch.

I could be the most talked about house on the street though, hmmm... :)

Lisa

Lisa, as to the exorbitant price of sweet potato vine, I usually make a bunch of baby vines pretty easily from purchasing one big one with a lot of growing tips (or sometimes a hanging basket, which usually will have three plants in it). They root in water very readily in the summertime, (I stick a bunch in a cup of water on my porch when it's warm) and aren't too hard to get going in soil. Thought that might help!

Bon, The first year I let Seminole climb up into the oak trees on the north edge of the garden, it kinda stopped traffic. Not believing they were seeing pumpkins, I would be asked by folks if it was "an apple, or what?".

So, in the interest of keeping life along our roadway interesting, next year I let my Trombocino squash (which is the same as zuchetta, i.e. Zuchetta rampicante Trombocino) climb from the garden fence to a 15' tall possumhaw holly outside the fence and then up into the pecan tree. Those long green squash looked kinda like the green tree snakes we have here, only fatter. That same year, Chris' very large iguana, Alex, who at that point was about 6' long including his tail, broke out of his large outdoor enclosure and climbed the pecan tree. The first neighbor who saw Alex said he'd warn his wife and daughters that the iguana was on the loose, so that they wouldn't think they were seeing a gator.

Life in our neighborhood is many things, but it is never dull.

I do what Mia does---buy a slightly larger ornamental sweet potato vine in a pot, usually the next size up from the little 3 or 4" pots, and I take cuttings off that one. You can get even more plants from one pot if you buy one of the gallon sized ones. They root fast and then grow like mad all summer.

In a similar situation in my garden, I grow Laura Bush petunias from seed under my perennial hibiscus, which I think is Luna Red that I raised from seed several years ago. Underneath my Texas hibiscus, I usually have Laura Bush petunia but this year I put Gold Mound lantana beneath it instead. Of course, since the Laura Bush petunias reseed prolifically and new ones pop up all summer long, I bet the Gold Mound will find itself slugging it out with LB petunias by midsummer in a wild fight for space.

This year I put ornamental sweet potatoes in the pepper bed with my hot peppers so they can serve as a living mulch to cover the ground and keep it cool for the peppers.

Dawn

Lisa they are already talking about you, and your yard!!! After all it is the prettiest one on your street.

Mia I do the same. Can't see a reason to buy several SP.