Hello,
I'm from Northeast MS and I have hardy hibiscus that come back every year and it's not just me. If you could do a google search, you would get 68,700 hits on hardy hibiscus. Someone at the second nursery gave you a half true statement. The tropical ones will not overwinter here, but they might in your zone, I'm not sure, but! the hardy ones will. The one you bought that's shrub form, white with red eye is most likely hardy. They come in many colors. Hope this helps.
May God bless you with his loving Grace, Mona

I'm just a few miles from you, and I have both a hardy hibiscus and a tropical hibiscus that came back this year. I have lost tropical hibiscuses that I left in pots and didn't bring in, but this year I tried one in the ground. I mulched it heavily with pine straw, and it's coming back nicely - it's about 18" tall now. Since hibiscuses are easy to root, I usually take some cuttings to overwinter inside, just for insurance - we're bound to have a really, really cold winter at some point where they don't come back!

That's a really good idea for a lot of the things that are hardy most years but get wiped out in our occasional cold winters--that is, mulch well and take cuttings for insurance.

Okay, I think I understand BUT...what are hardy hibiscus? I haven't seen any that say so on the tags.

Also, if anyone reads this far, do gardenias bloom long here? I was at one nursery that said they only bloom the first part of summer and the other said all summer long. Uggh! Nurseries are supposed to know these things right?

I live about 12 miles inland from the Gulf Coast in Gulfport MS. I have 2 Hardy Hibiscus in my yard, 3 yrs old. We had a hard winter last year, even sleet, I mulched heavy, but they did not come back this year. I planted from seed this year and so far I have 25 little plants comming up! I think your best bet is to mulch & cover them in winter. Good Luck

Kahlanne, nurseries are indeed supposed to know those things, but there are nurseries and nurseries. Certainly your chances of getting informed help at any of the box stores is not very good--they pay pretty poorly, and are usually very under-staffed, so they can't retain good help for the most part. Some of the 'real' nurseries aren't much, if any, better, but some are very good. As for gardenias, there are lots, and I think their flowering varies. The only one I know anything about is the one that came under the fence from my neighbor, and it seems to be blooming for quite awhile this year in spite of NO WATER!!! I wish it would RAIN!!! Some folks not too far away have had some recently, but I think we've had less than half an inch THIS MONTH!!!
About the hardy hibiscus--if you drive around a little later in the season, especially where you can see down the railroad tracks, you will see some really beautiful native hibiscus of several varieties and colors. Plants that look that good on railroad rights-of-ways have to be hardy to some fantastic degree. You could probably collect seeds or maybe cuttings, or even dig small seedlings. I have the native H. coccinea, which has very large screaming red flowers and leaves that would probably get you in trouble if you lived in the 'wrong' part of town (they look a lot like something some people like to smoke, tho' of course I wouldn't know anything about that). But I'm not sure I could really recommend it for anything but a wild garden--it gets lots of seed pods up the stems as it gets taller and taller and the bloomes get higher and higher, and I think it looks pretty weedy after a bit.

Hardy hibiscus (hibiscus moscheutos) will be root hardy to -10F to -20F degrees. Lastrapes Garden Center on I-49 is advertising on their marquis that they have hardy hibiscus. They are right across from Doctor's Hospital. You may try them

I live just outside Baton Rouge and I have two hibiscus, one is a tropical that i have in a pot and the other one is called a mardi gra Hibiscus that I planted in the ground. Both came back this year and are doing wonderfully! I didn't bring the potted one in side either. i left it out all winter but it was on my covered front porch. The one in the ground, I mulched really well.

Hardy hibiscus comes back even here in Zone 7. Tropical hibiscus goes dormant in my garage over winter but comes back as well- I 'm told 45 degrees is the limit for tropical.

Even the tropicals can come back from the roots after a light freeze. Anticipate enjoying them for several years and then having to replace them. My neighbor has a huge old tropical that took two years to recover from a late freeze several years ago but was blooming all winter this year.

It seems that the older, less interesting varieties are more cold tolerant than the newer splashier cultivars. You may have to settle for some sort of red. Drive around the older neighborhoods, you will find plenty of well-established red tropicals.

Tropicals have a shiny leaf and hardy has a dull color of green.Both of mine come back and I just leave in ground.

Louisiana girl is right. The hardy hibiscus leaf is matte green. The tropical type has a shiny leaf.
For dependable information, get yourself a copy of the Southern Living Garden Book. It saved me time, money, and lots of work and worry! Forget asking garden center employees for advice.

Incidentally, the Althea IS a type of hibiscus - Hibiscus syriacus.

You beat me to it Pinky. The Althea is in fact a Hibiscus. There are some really nice double Althea's though.

One particular hardy hibiscus that I want is "Blue River". I finally ordered it, and my son promptly weed-whacked it a week later! I recovered the severed victim, and actually managed to get it to root. My son's twin brother suprised us by doing the lawn while we were off shopping, and weed-whacked it again! The blooms on this particular variety can easily get as large as a dinner plate. Just like our indigenous hibiscus it is nearly a bog plant in it's love of water. I was told by the mail-order nursery that it would surely survive our winters. Which might mean that it would croak with the first cool front that breezes through.

I knew I had read something recently about hardy hibiscus but I couldn't remember where, but today I was browsing one of my favorite sites and came across a number of hibiscus and hibiscus relatives. (Y'all know Okra is a hibiscus, right? Such beautiful flowers!) Anyway--check out Plant Delights Nursery. You may not want to look at the prices, but the plants are fascinating, the pictures are beautiful, and the information is excellent. And they have lots of plants you can't find anywhere else, and they get reports on how things grow in our heat and humidity. I haven't been able to trim a list down enough to send them an order--I KNOW I can't take care of everything I want! But I hear so many good reports about them that I will manage, especially since a couple of my darling children sent me gift certificates. Did I mention I have very nice kids?

In the Shreveport-Bossier City area, Ellis Pottery has some hardy Hibiscus. At least, they did last week!