Rose of Sharon Profiled

Some plants are just easy to like—winning friends and admirers wherever they pop up. Rose of Sharon or Hibiscus syriacus is one of them. These eight to twelve foot multi-stemmed shrubs, which can be pruned and trained into the shape of small trees, were among the most popular plants in the nineteenth century America. In its native Asia, Rose of Sharon is the national flower of South Korea. Even members of other species love the colorful blossoms. Hummingbirds find them irresistible.

The traditional Rose of Sharon, a member of the Malvaceae or Mallow family, loves full sun or very light shade, flourishes in just about any soil, and blooms prolifically in mid to late summer. It has fairly small, glossy leaves that sometimes have three lobes, and bright hollyhock-like flowers in shades of white, pink, red, lavender or blue-purple. Sometimes the blossoms also have red or pink throats that contrast with the main flower color.

Lovely as it is, traditional Rose of Sharon has a couple of less than desirable habits. It is downright profligate in the way it seeds the surrounding area with miniature versions of itself. Left to its own devices a single Rose of Sharon could probably produce an expanding grove of offspring within a few years. The shrubs also have a tendency to become “leggy”, with long branches and sparse flowers. These problems can be corrected by shearing off spent flowerheads before the seed pods develop (to prevent self-seeding) and providing adequate light conditions. You can also prune the shrubs after flowering to keep the plants more compact and tidy.

View all of our Rose of Sharon

Or better yet, purchase a hybrid Hibiscus syriacus that has been bred to be less fertile and better mannered. ‘Chiffon White’ and ‘Satin Rose’ are two examples. ‘Chiffon White’ produces large flowers with white petals that frame a central mass of dainty white petaloids, while ‘Satin Rose’ features pink blossoms with red centers. H. syriacus ‘Ardens’, is a sterile triploid form of the plant, with an extra basic chromosome set, a genetic modification that results in larger flowers and very few seedpods. The flowers in this case are blue-purple with red throats. ‘Morning Star’ is similar, but the flowers are pale gray-blue with pink throats. ‘Diana’, another sterile triploid form, has single white flowers. Two other triploids, ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ and ‘Lucy’, produce lush, double blooms, the former in white and the latter in pink. Hibiscus syriacus ‘Peaonyflorus’ features lavender blossoms.

At least one Rose of Sharon variety has variegated foliage. Some cultivars are also a bit more compact than the traditional forms—reaching a maximum of only six to eight-feet high.

While Hibiscus syriacus does not provide fall color, its bare upright branches can lend structure to the winter garden. Massed together, the shrubs also form an attractive deciduous hedge that will make your yard a magnet for hummingbirds and butterflies—not to mention the neighbors.