In early November I finally got around to bringing our small Hibiscus shrub indoors for the winter. I usually bring it, and my other tropical plants and vines indoors sometime in October but I was a little late this year.
Being late didn’t seem to do my plants any harm. In fact, my hibiscus is very happy if it’s abundant blooms mean anything at all!
I have the small hibiscus in my kitchen and I almost think it’s blooming more indoors than it did when it was outside during the summer.
One bonus to growing hibiscus is that we can use the flowers as food for our box turtles. Yes, the turtles occasionally get to snack on a coral colored hibiscus blooms that’s almost as large as they are. They love them!
Even my Labrador Retriever puppy seems to like the flowers. One dead flower fell to the floor a few days ago and as I was picking it up to put it in the trash I noticed Midnight looking at it with interest and I thought, well the turtles eat the flowers and they are perfectly safe to eat so why not see if she’ll eat it? She promptly took off with the flower to her doggy bed – her special place to eat treats and stolen treasures (dads socks, tissue boxes and so on) and munched on the flower.
If the hibiscus keeps blooming through the winter I guess I have three pets that can enjoy the occasional flower treat. Well … after we’ve enjoyed the visual treat of seeing such lovely flowers indoors, I mean.
