Some time last year I read about leaving brugs in the ground and wrapping the trunks up to the"y." Also the was mention of some sort of pipe insulation. I have been cutting all of mine down, and rooting the resulting trees all winter. I want to do it differently as I am finding that the ones that come back from the roots take too long to "Y" and sometimes don't bloom at all before frost. Besides I have enough of the same ones to quit doubling them every year! LOL I left almost all of the ones I rooted this past winter in large pots instead of in the ground and will bring them into the greenhouse or let them go dormant in the storage room.
What I am wondering is what kinds of results those who did this before got from the bubble wrap and how cold it got there? How many layers did you wrap around the plants and if anyone did the pipe insulation thing, how that worked out also? I know it is not near time to do this, but I may buy my stuff ahead a little at a time and also time really flies when you are having fun... ( I must be having a blast and not know it!)
Thanks in advance for any who reply to this!
Carol
Wanting info on bubble wrap and pipe insulation...
Carol,
I used a modified version of wrapping with bubble wrap on the 3 Brugs I had in the ground. I modified it for the following reason: plastic in contact with plant material will transmit the cold. I wasn't sure what thr R-factor of bubble wrap was. I still don't know. The lowest temperature for winter of 2007-08 was 26ºF. This past winter the temperature got down to 25ºF.
You know how our winter temperatures yo yo up and down so I didn't want to leave the wrap on all winter long fearing the Brugs would be cooked during those 70 and 80ºF weathers we can have. I'd wrap the afternoon before a freeze was predicted and remove the wrap when the temperatures rose above 40ºF. We seemed to have gotten a greater number of freezing days this winter because I was out there every few days in either January or February. By early March, I was ready to let them freeze to the ground, but I kept it up all winter.
Audrey Hepburn was a 5' Brug when I first started wrapping her. She had 4 main trunks with "Y"s on all 4 and a number of sub"Y"s above that. In fact she was blooming when I first wrapped her. By the end of winter, she was down to the main stubs, dead "Y"s and 3 of those trunks eveually died and were replaced by new ones growing out just above the soil surface. I don't see that I got much of a head start this spring.
The other 2 Brugs were 1' tall Jaime's with beautiful huge leaves when winter started. I carefully wrapped each one with burlap and 1 layer of bubble warp. Then I covered each one with a large fiberglass pot and wrapped the pot with another 2 layers of bubble wrap. Granted the bubble wrap didn't always stay completely on. The winds howling through here in winter were really fierce at times and blew some portions of the wrap off. I also noticed that regardless of what tape I used to keep the bubble wrap on, it lost its adhesiveness once it froze. I even tried stapling the bubble wrap together only to end in failure. These poor babies suffered a long slow death and didn't return this spring. They were either more sensitive to cold or too small to withstand the cold. For these two, the experiment was a complete failure.
Toward the end of winter, I read a thread where someone in Austin had wrapped each Brug trunk individually and just left the bubble wrap on all winter long. I don't remember whether the "Y"s survived, but the trunks seemed to. I will try that this coming winter. Wrap'em and leav'em! It's too tiring and too cold to go out when the temperatures are in the high 30s and windy as heck to try to wrap some Brugs.
One thing you may try is to longer cuttings that Include the portions above the "Y" to root during winter. I think I will continue to keep most of my Brugs in pots that can be safely overwintered in the greenhouse.
Thank you BettyDee!!! I appreciate hearing from you. You always have good information and experience for us!
I am in 8a so it gets a little colder here. If you did not have good luck, I probably won't either.
I do root the long cuttings, sometimes over 6 ft. And I have about 50 in pots that I bring in, but a lot are the same like 'Butterfly' and 'Isabella' and 'Frosty Pink.' That is whay I don't really want to cut the ones in the ground to root, because I don't need any more of the same ones. I already give them away by the dozens to friends and relatives.
I am thinking that I may have to just dig up all that are in the ground, pot up the ones that are not duplicates of what I already have and give away the rest. Then I can put something else in the ground where they were that will bloom! Most of the time they are just leaves anyway. At first I thought it was great that they could be put in the ground here and come back from the roots. Less to store for wiinter... But it is not so great when they spend most of the year recovering their height and seldom bloom... The ones I have in pots now are almost all ready to bloom and some have already bloomed at least once. Of the ones in the ground only a few have some tiny buds. Do you think it would be best to do what I am thinking to do?
I don't know if digging the Brugs up and potting is the best for your back, but digging them up seems to work for Brug growers in colder climates. Brugs growing in the ground will get larger than those grown in pots. Another alternative to think about is to set the pots directly on the ground. If the pots have holes on the side, then hill some soil up around the base of the pot to cover the holes. Putting the pots directly on the ground allows the roots to grow out the drain holes. You can see the difference when the Brug roots have gotten into the soil because the plants really take off. It's a lot easier to sever the roots with a long knife just before taking the pots indoors. Of course, you would have to prune some of the tops off to compensate for the loss of roots. I've done this accidentally. I would do this with all my pots if it weren't for the Bermuda grass. It grows up the drain holes and loves all that moisture and fertilizer. At the end of the year, if I don't remove all the soil and hand pick ALL the Bermuda roots out, it will take over the pot and kill the Brug in the pot. Bermuda is nasty stuff. It will travel under ground for considerable distances to get to water. So I prefer to place my pots on pavers.
I'm going to give it one more try. I have a roll of bubble wrap that I originally bought to insulate my little orchid greenhouse. I may as well experiment with the left overs. I may have been trying to save too much of the plant. This time around I'll prune off all but the main trunks and a few of the "Y"s. Burlap may not have been the best material to use as insulation — weave is too open. I'll have to see what I can find between now and the first frost to use next to the Brug itself. Then use several layers going all the way to the ground. Maybe mound some soil or mulch around the base of the bubble wrap to keep cold air from going up the column from below. Then cap the top so the material doesn't get wet and finally, wind string aound the bubble wrap to keep it in place. I'm going to leave the wrap on all winter. I'll have a back up Audrey Hepburn in the greenhouse. If it still doesn't work, I'll let Mother Nature have her way.
Betty,
Sounds like a plan! I am not sure but I think the ones that tried the bubble wrap only covered up past the Y. I also think they did not use anything else but the bubble wrap and of course mulching the roots. But since no one who has done it has replied to my thread, I don't know what happened with it, except that as I remember, some had said they had done it with good result. I really wanted to know how many layers to use and details like did they seal it off at the top, and how? and stuff like that.
I use pavers under most of mine also. I have some sitting directly on the ground in beds. All of those will be wintered over inside. The ones in the ground are actually the "cutting parent" of all of my really large brugs. They are the ones that come back from the roots that I am trying to determine their future. The Large ones in pots I am happy with. They were made from cutting the whole brug at the ground and rooting in water (the whole thing).
I think I will try the bubble wrap on a few of the ones that are the same as some I have in pots. If they don't make it, it won't hurt a thing. Others I will dig up and pot up if they are one I don't have a duplicate. The rest I am going to dig up and give away. I don't intend to plant and dig up brugs every year like some do. You are right, it is too hard on the back to do that. I just want to change my outlying beds from have brugs that don't bloom to other plants that do! All of my brugs in pots bloom, but only some of the ones in the ground do. I would think they were just "bad brugs" except they are the "cutting parent" of the ones that are blooming in the pots!
I would llike to devote more of my time to aquiring some special new brugs, instead of propagating the same ones! I will be looking for offers of cuttings in the fall on the brug and plant trading forums! I don't see them in nurseries here and I had bad luck with some I bought on the internet. So I will stick with trading...
Thank you for all of your great info!
Carol