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Convince me otherwise, but I’ve never had much appreciation for Rose of Sharon.
Published Sep 05, 2025 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 1 minute read
A Rose of Sharon plant is shown. (John DeGroot photo) HandoutArticle content
Convince me otherwise, but I’ve never had much appreciation for Rose of Sharon.
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Their blooms, mostly in shades of pink, arrive in late summer when little else is blooming.
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Their teacup-sized blooms are a magnet for bees and butterflies.
Their flowers last longer than most flowering shrubs, with first buds opening in mid-August, finally giving up in late September.
Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) is closely related to the perennial hibiscus, often called hollyhocks, producing dinner plate-sized blooms in mid-summer. The third relative is a popular tropical plant that will need to be brought indoors for winter.
If left unattended, Rose of Sharon will become a tall, leggy plant, reaching heights of three or four metres.
Its overall shape is like a cone, wider on the top than bottom. I usually describe its shape as up-side-down, because most shrubs are broad at their base.
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Rose of Sharon has a nasty habit of self-seeding. Flowers, with their seeds attached, drop in the fall and often sprout in unexpected places the following spring. The small seedlings are hardly considered weedy, because they are easy to remove.
A few U.S. states, including Michigan, have been quick to put Rose of Sharon on their invasive species list. We friendlier Canadians have chosen to forgive Rose of Sharon’s habit of producing too many offspring.
Gardeners like me, who aren’t fond of Rose of Sharon’s leggy growth habit, should prune the shrub each spring to achieve a compact, tidy shape. And if you’re bothered by seedlings that sprout in spring, consider planting sterile varieties with no nuisance seeds.
Rose of Sharon is a highly adaptive plant that tolerates heat, drought and poor soil. Plant it in a location with full sun with well-drained rich soil and it will thrive.
If planted in a shady location, Rose of Sharon will give you fewer flowers. And it does not tolerate waterlogged soil.
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