dog chewed off hibiscus plants right down to the ground

Question

My dog chewed off all my hibiscus plants right down to the ground. Will they come back next year? We live in Minnesota and my bed is raised about 2 feet above the rest of the yard. We also have rubber mulch around them. Oddly enough, my hibiscus seem to do much better than everyone else’s, so I’m not sure if the mulch creates a warmer spring for them. Each year, I simply let them die off and winter over, cutting back the rotten stems soon after the snow melts in the spring. Two weeks ago, my Labrador literally ate the stems right down to the ground. There is nothing left of the plant above the mulch. What are the chances they will come back next year, and is there anything I can do to aid them in their recovery?

Answer 1

They should come back since they were nice and healthy before being dined on. Good chance they’ll send up some new shoots in a couple of weeks. The best thing you can do is nothing, unless you’ve been irrigating, in which case you should cut back on water, since there are no leaves to transpire.