Rose of Sharon shines in the late summer garden
An unsung hero of the late summer garden is rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus). This shrub’s branches are studded with pastel blossoms year after year, despite drought, poor soil or general neglect. Cold winters or sweltering summers similarly leave it unfazed.
Despite its tolerance for frigid winters, rose of Sharon has always seemed to me a “Southern” shrub. Perhaps that’s because I was inundated with this plant during the two years I sojourned in the most southern county of a barely Southern state. More likely, I connect rose of Sharon with the South because of its family connections. Rose of Sharon is not a rose at all, or even distantly related to one. Rather, hibiscus, cotton and okra are its kin – all “Southern” plants.
Family matters
Rose of Sharon and its relatives are part of the Mallow Family. The most famous “mallow” plant is the wetland marsh mallow. Marshmallows were originally made from the candied roots of marsh mallows.
Only a glance at rose of Sharon’s blossoms reveals its kinship with other members of the family. From the center of each flaring trumpet of petals protrudes a tubular column of male and female flower parts, the male parts bristling out along the column and the female parts splayed out at the far end. Those petals might be purple, red, pink, white – on some plants even blue. And those trumpets, on some varieties of rose of Sharon, are made up of more than a single row of petals.
Beauty with little trouble
This growth habit tells you something about rose of Sharon’s pruning needs. They are, in a word, few. Like PeeGee hydrangeas and climbing roses, all that rose of Sharon needs is very occasionally to have a decrepit stem cut back low in the plant. If flowering seems too sparse, shortening some stems in the upper part of the shrub will provide the necessary invigoration.
Rose of Sharon blossoms on new growth, so the time to prune it is in late winter, before new growth begins.