Holedigger, check out the link below. Fellow Gwebber, Ecophotog also seen a similiar vining Hibiscus.

Here is a link that might be useful: Is this an hibiscus flower on a trailing vine?

I saw that post. The one I saw was different. It was woody stemmed but only had 4-5 upright branches that grew 5-6 foot tall and then arched. There was almost no lateral growth or branches. I could not see any evidence of pruning. The hibiscus I see eveywhere else has much more dense foliage and growth.I will try to post a picture.

Could be hibiscus "Snow Queen". Go to Google images to see a picture (GardenWeb won't allow me to post one here). All hibs are prone to whitefly, some more than others. I used to have a Snow Queen and I don't recall the bugs bothering it too much compared to many of my other hibs.

Hello Holedigger:

Excuse me from piping in but when you said variegated leaves, I thought perhaps you might be speaking of Hibiscus schizopetalus, which is commonly planted in the tropics. Without a better description, I could be wrong, but is this what you saw?

{{gwi:1307731}}

If it is, this comes in variegated leaf form as well and is available and all of the major online nurseries, including Kartuz, Aloha Tropicals and Logee's.

Other possibilities are hau (Hibiscus tiliaceus) which has a variegated leaf mixed with some pink) or H. arnottianus

As far as giant whitefly goes, try mixing in some worm castings into the soil around the plants. After you rinse the colonies off, till this into the soil. Not only is it a good organic ferilizer, but it adds a taste to the plant that deter whiteflies. It usually lasts for about six months.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

That's a beautiful flower on that H. schizopetalus.
It could also simply be that the plant has indeed never been pruned. Hibiscus can get leggy and sparsely leaved if they aren't pruned. We tip prune ours every season to promote branching.

It all makes sense now. I saw both "snow queen" and schizopetalus. But they had never been pruned. The variegated foliage I mentioned was definitely snow queen, but I have a photo of a flower that looks exactly like schizopetalus. I have never seen a Hibiscus that wasn't pruned before. I think i like them better that way. Also, thanks for the tip about worm castings. I have been avoiding certain citrus and tropicals because I
hate whitefly. I was just at Kartuz a week ago and didn't notice their hibiscus, probably because they were in 4" pots and didn't look like anything yet. Mystery solved thanks to the good folks at GW!

The chemical present in worm casts that allegedly deters whiteflies (along with many other sucking and chewing insects) from plants is chitinase. I don't grow anything particularly susceptible to whitefly attack and have a rather large population of red wigglers anyway thanks to the volume of mulch I provide but I found a pair of articles that you might find interesting:

WormGold article

Be sure to look at the follow-up located near the end of the article.

My opinion is that it is quite possible that chitinase can work as advertized but that the enzyme doesn't persist long in the environment.