Several of these have emanated from the USA, including A. ‘Gerdeman’s Red’ with tomato-red flowers.
We have these as pot subjects on the steps of our front terrace, where they are providing us with a flaming finale before the days shorten and they are put to bed.
We grow a few of these, and they all share the fact that their flowering power starts in May and gets better until curbed by shortening days.
For those that find ‘Gerdeman’s Red’ to strident a shade, there are alternatives.
A. Pink Charm is similar in all respects but pale-pink, whilst A. Inez is a soft primrose-yellow with a brown calyx.
All three are compact growers to around 1.5 metres tall.
However, Abutilon Estella’s Little Bird is a livelier shade of yellow, but with a peculiar horizontal habit.
If you wish it to make height, you must help it.
Easily done but, another job, again it is reasonably compact.
Two other Abutilon megapotanicum crosses whose growth is best described as super-scandent are Kentish Belle, yellow flowers with a reddish-brown calyx, and Hot Orange Lava, orange with a brown calyx.
Here they are almost too vigorous unless planted to scramble their way through towering neighbours when they fling forth shoots above head height dripping with blossom, a welcome surprise in late summer and autumn and occasionally, in late spring.
However, there is one very large-flowered variety that we have grown on the south side of the house for the past 10 years where it has excelled itself.
Often defoliated in winter, it springs into growth, flowering from May until October with quantities of coral-red flowers.
It’s called Ashford Red.
Not all Abutilons such as these have similar flowering periods.
Red Tiger, with orange flowers streaked with red, blooms like billy-o in early summer but then stalls, perhaps it was the heat?
I planted one on the Office wall, and whilst all the others are reaching their crescendo, Red Tiger has but two of three flowers, some you win!
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