They look pretty. Here's my favorite Hibiscus called 'Midnight Marvel' in bloom today. I love the dark foliage which looks good even when the plant isn't in bloom.

There's the Disco Belle I was remembering. Great shrub, Woody, lucky you! Looks like it has a lot of buds and ready to keep you in blooms for awhile. Your Butterfly Bush is looking really healthy too. Nice to have lots blooming in August!

That Midnight Marvel looks good - I'll keep an eye out for it.... A few years ago I bought a 'Fireball' partly because of its dark, cutleaf foliage. But I've been disappointed with the foliage in the garden - not really dark at all even though it's in full sun. I suspect the conditions are a bit too dry foor it and that probably affects the color. The flowers are beautiful though - but not nearly as prolific as the Disco Belles!

pm2 - one of the things I like about those Disco Belles is that they do appear to be shrubs, although of course they're not.... I like perennials that have that kind of presence in the garden!

I really like the way Disco Belle subtly echoes the color of the Echinaceas.

I planted my first hibiscus earlier this summer. A gift from a friend. I'm eager to see what it looks like, since all they could tell me was "red".

'Midnight Marvel' gets 5 feet tall and about 5 feet wide. There is another dark foliage variety called 'Summer Storm' that has pink blooms with red streaks in the middle. That one is good too. If anyone wants to root cuttings of these, they root easy in a glass of water.

Gorgeous! I just love hibiscus! Mine haven't started yet, as I pinch them many times, but are budded up. Oh, wait - I take that back, my Anne Arundel has started. Really looking forward to my "Brandy Punch" in the front of the house, lots of buds on those, and the color is just a joyous shade of pink. :0)

I have Luna series and Disco Belle series, and I think Disco Belle is the better of the two - more floriferous and robust plants overall. Getting harder and harder to find, though - seems to have been replaced by Luna. Luna are okay, they're not bad per se - I just think DB is better.

I'm so jealous!!!! I have them in red, white and pink and the hoards of Japanese Beetles have really done a job on them this summer! They haven't allowed a single white bud to open. I have never seen so many beetles as this year and they love the Disco Belle buds and flowers. (They leave the leaves alone).

Would this work? If next year I cut them back as they start to grow, maybe they will start budding and blooming after the beetles are gone. What do you think?

There are seeds of 'Disco Belles' available in lots of places. This is a seed variety and seems easy to find. The one I posted is not a seed variety. I don't think I've seen the ones with dark leaves from seeds yet. The reason the 'Luna' plants (from seeds also) are so popular is because they are small and many people don't have enough room for the big ones. I think they only get about 2-3 feet tall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Disco Belle Seeds

This post was edited by echinaceamaniac on Sat, Aug 10, 13 at 9:21

Ryse, Tracy Disabato-Aust recommends that very strategy in her book "The Well Tended Perennial Garden". I don't have to book handy so I can't look up the partculars, but I can check later if you'd like.

That's a nice one, Woody. I really like how your 2 pics show how layered your garden is with perennials, shrubs and trees. I'm losing my bearings a little in the first photo, but is that the heptacodium behind the butterfly bush. And what is that purple leaved tree?

thyme - yes the heptacodium is behind the butterfly bush in that picture - but the camera 'flattens' the depth. The heptacodium tree is 15' or more away from the BB but you can't see that in the viewing angle of the photo. Similarly, the purple tree is the neighbour's beech tree - and that tree is probably 60' away! But it fits nicely as a 'borrowed view' for my garden :-)