The front of our house is very shady. We have 5 or 6 huge trees that cover the yard and it is one of our favorite things about the house. The last week or so we have been working out there in the two flower beds to make the front yard even more appealing and plan to make a great hang out spot under the trees.
Most of the plants that we decided on are more foliage than flowers, since they seem to grow better in the shade.
However when we first passed by these Abutilon I fell in love.
They look like Hibiscus flowers only small and the leaves are a great green color and almost as big as the flowers.
We didn’t buy them the first day and went back to the same green house two more times before I broke down and bought some. I’m so glad that we finally got them, they have exceeded my expectations.
They got planted in the flower bed on Monday afternoon and since then we have had awful winds. Last night there were reported gusts up to 61 miles an hour and as I lay in bed awake from all the wind noise all I could think about were my poor little flowers being blown to shreads. To my surprise not one of our four plants was hurt at all. I didn’t even see a leaf or flower missing. These are sturdy little guys, just what we needed!
Along with the peach and yellow, we also bought some pink and red. They will do a great job of adding a little color to our mostly green beds. If you want to read a little more about the Abultilon genus – here is the wiki on them.
Beautiful flowers- I especially like the peach one.
They are great flowers. I bought a couple last year that were shaped more like lanterns. Not sure they made it through our winter, though.
Those are pretty, and they do remind me a lot of Hibiscus flowers.
albutilons are in the malllow family along with hibiscus. Very pretty and take the shade much better than hibiscus. Now I will quit being a smarty pants and go back over to my blog to wrangle monkeys.
Laura – Thanks for stopping by. I love the peach also because of it’s little pink center.
Melanthia – I’m worried about them making it through our extreme heat during the summer, but maybe they will manage in the shade.
Anita – Thanks! They will look good when the rest of the bed fills in around them.
Smarty Pants, I mean Deb – Thanks for the info! Off the subject but did you grow your hardy hibiscus from seed? We just got some in, I’m going to give it a shot.