You still can easy recoignize the Y, marking the end of the vegetaive zone and the begin of the generative zone. The thick branches belong to the basic structure of the Tree top. They carry each year a mighty tree top. The cannot be pruned to short, otherwise the tree type is lost.
Maybe Kyle would be so nice and explain it to you better as I can in my poor english.
I understand perfectly what you're saying and the picture is a bonus. Thanks
Are you saying that each year the tree forms a new Y from the old one and that you cut above it each year, making the tree top more bushy each year or do you just cut above the first Y each year?
Liz, explain it to me.
This message was edited Friday, Mar 22nd 5:03 PM
Brugcrazy, last year I cut my Valley White below the Y and it started putting on new growth at the top. I left only one place to grow and now it is about 2 foot taller and you can barely tell where the old growth left off and the new started. It is like it is continuing to grow a tall trunk. Now I have to wait for it to Y again, but I'm getting a tall one out of it. I'm just wondering if it will be weak at the point it started growing again.
I'm sure you are right. Just wait and see, we will have a big wind and something will happen. This is the only one I did that to. All the rest were cut back even further. Don't have room for all those big trees, but think this year I'm going to have to figure out how to make the room. There is nothing any prettier than Monika's trees. They just blow my mind and I can't wait to have my own.
The Y is the original. NEVER CUT BACK UNDER THE Y! The trunk inclusive Y and the branches are about 10 years old on these trees. Its the basic structure, all I cut back is the yearly growth.
Monika - It looks like you keep all the foliage growth clipped off intil the generative zone too? Does that help produce more flowers?
monika, what you're saying then is that keeping my plants in the ground is not good. Even though they will winter over, I'll lose all the trunk and never have what I want, correct? that does firm up my plans!
tig, if you only want trees maybe so. if you want bushes too you might leave those in the ground. my frozen ones are putting up between 2 and 6 babies per clump. my JO/CG or whatever it was that froze back the year before put up 6 stalks, went 7-8 feet tall and at least a 15 foot circle. it didn't quit blooming until the frost came in december. i'm still deciding what i'll leave in pots to protect next winter and what i'll let freeze. for sure JO/CG, my bushy pinks, etc will let freeze for sure.
Monika is trying to say..theres two types of brugmansia growth..the upward vegetative growth..that usually grows upward to about 7 feet and then the trunk branches (y Growth) and makes blooming growth. Then when you prune your brug..never cut below the `Y' because the plant then will have a large stub at this point and it will take another 7 feet of growth to `Y' out again.always prune above the `Y' or cut to almost the soil line and let new growth from the roots make a new plant in the spring.
%@$# - Monika, where were you last fall when we were hacking our plants back. I'd like to speak to the people who said they cut theirs down to 6in. Thank goodness I didn't go that far - mine are about 5 ft tall - below the Y - thank you very much - ACK!!! OK - starting from scratch.
whew!! I saved a few, they had pods on them and couldnt' cut them back. The only really big plants I have are the common ones, but the new ones I've gotten from you guys are trying to catch up. Whiskers is still blooming and is at least 7 feet tall. It's got a straight trunk up about 5 feet and then is all blooming stuff above the Y. Jean Pasco Y'd at about 3 feet on one plant and 4 feet on the other. I think some varieties are naturally shorter than others, like FP is much shorter than Ecuador Pink.
Okay, my FP was much taller than my EP. So, what do we do to get these plants to have taller trunks? Is there an easy way or are we doomed here? I can really tell that the brugs from seed will probably get much taller and be straighter, at least the way mine are growing now.
Please tell me if I have this right. If I plant an 8ft tree outside that has Y'd and those Y branches grow three feet longer during the summer then when I bring it in for the winter I only cut off the new three foot growth and have the original 8ft tree with the original Y's ?
I have pictures somewhere, showing my alley trees being pruned before digging out. Or better, I make a drawing from the Charles Grimaldi Tree on the above picture, what he looks like after being pruned for overwintering.
I can post some pictures of what happens when your Brugmansia are allowed to freeze back as I have some blooming outside that froze back last year further south. Its a 2 hour drive, but well worth it to show you guys what you can expect. Just have to wait till they are blooming again. I did pull a few seedpods off of them this year, so they definitly did grow back, flower, and set seed. What I have found is that my plants that freeze back come back much bushier and flower much more heavily. The top stems that are thick enough make it in a light freeze as well. I can show plants that have undergone partial and complete freezing. Of course, I am sure others here can as well. I don't personally cut my plants back to the ground. I let the cold do that. Either the cold is strong enough to knock them completly to the ground or it isn't. One will have to trim the dead parts off of course. I generally wait till the dead parts have dried though so as to be easier to remove. Trying to remove the dead parts too soon allows one to damage the plant further.
Brugmans, I can show you a frozen 12 year old Charming tree, still standing in the alley. There will nothing come back, as the winter frosts are to severe in Europe and go deep into the ground. In milder climates, where temperatures moderate above the freezing point but with long rain periods, roots and stems rot away.
I dont know if you have ever seen an older tree, loaded with 500 - 600 flowers AT ONCE ! You live in the warm florida climate, where growth is optimal for Brugmansias, but like me, I have to deal with almost 6 month lasting winters, Temperatures down to -20°C for weeks. My brugmansias are in the winterquarter from begin of Oct. until Mid May. Last year, it was freezing every night by -6°C until May 2nd. In the severe winter of 1996/97, the last azalea flower was in August because the ground was frozen until June. I poured boiling water into the brugholes in the alley to get the frost out before I could plant them.
Monika, we have some older Brugmansia trees that regardless of our light freezes a bit further south reliably have those large numbers of flowers. They are versicolors though and white.
Brugman, versicolor flowers only in the mild regions of Bodensee,Rheinpfalz, Bergstraße (has almost a subtropical climate) and in the Ruhrgebiet (Cologne, Aachen etc) But I would not want to live there. In Summer, there are Thunderstorms, often coming along with hail corns bigger as a chickens egg. Where I live, hail is seldom and when, small and doesnt do that much damage. But we have more wind and storms up to Orkan (Hurricane I believe) with a strength from 100 - 140km/hr. This is why I have been so inventive to minimize damage done to my brugs.
monika, could you please show us the alley being pruned?? if you did, I couldn't find it.
I have to check my color slides, otherwise I make pictures and post them for you.
thanks:)
this is just a suggestion Monika: i hope not all ur trees are pruned yet, would it be possible for u to video the entire process of pruning the brumansia for the winter? if so that will be swell, we can see the entire process... hopefully u can sell us copy/ies of the video. i for one will buy it from u plus postage to cover shipping the video. if tiG thinks she is slow, i am one who need to see and follow step on what to do. just my two cents worth.
MV, I'm just hoping that next winter I can find these threads, so I don't have to ask again!!! LOL!
do as i do tiG, book marked them on ur favorites! threads that i know i need to see and read again, i open a folder on my favorites and place them. i do categorize eat subfolder too! for example my main folder would be brugs, i create sub folders for #1. cutting,#2. chemicals which i have 2 sub folder: 1 for insects, and the other 1 for fertilizing or rooting. #3. pollens & pollinating etc... etc.... am sure u know what i mean. it makes it so easy to access. if i just do watch this thread. i am forever lost! bookmarking makes thing easier for me.
ah, but if something ever happens and they are lost, so are you!!! better to save a thread to your computer. I do it all the time.
click on file, save, then in one of the drop down boxes, change from web page to text file and click save. there you have it for good. unless your computer crashes!! so better to save to disc!
Oh my goodness tiG, all htis time I have been copying and pasting parts into my hard drive, never knew this feature!! Learn something new everyday. Of course I usually just want one part of the converstion, if you hilight one part does it just save that part.........i will try!! What fun......LOL!!
don't want to lose the point of this thread though:)
yes mother!
tiG, i knew better, i save them on diskettes and cd too. double check the files and even update too once in a while.
i just hope someone would consider creating a video on steps taken to winterize or prune brugs.
and you might add Ma Vie, to put in a few of those brug prunings in with the brug pruning video................ a sure sellout. LOL!
no Ms. Kell, video to show how to prune or winterize a brug is more important. am sure am not the only one to benefit from it. besides it is much easier to show rather than find words to explain steps done.
oh I do not know Ma Vie, I for one would love to have a few of those prunings in with my video!! LOL! I would only hope Monika is pruning a big fat dark pink one at the time she makes the video!
i didn't cut any of mine back last winter. and failed to protect well enough on the coldest night the ones in pots, though i tried. this year i'm keeping 12 or so, plus the babies in pots to protect, either in kirk's shed or a makeshift greenhouse with frost paper. i love the idea of having big plants and blooms so early. the frozen back ones do make pretty bushes though and i should have plenty of them too. tig if they aren't too tall you probably don't need to cut them back at all.
Arlene, what is the coldest you get there?
I should just break down and clean out my garage of 25 years of junk!!!
When I bought my first brugs(in a box ,small rooted cutting) the directions said to cut of 2/3's of the growth in the fall.Amazing how bad I was screwing up all my blooming time!
I won't have to cut any of mine back, we have 10 ft ceilings in the middle of the house, only when they all get that tall, I'll have to limit the number to 20 or so alley trees.
kell, if i were a traveling woman i would come help you, i love old junk.
depends, this past year was low 20s, year before had several nights in the teens, down to 16. i remember it going to 9F in i think 1979 or 1980. but it is so warm in between, up in the 70s maybe 80s, just few "hard frosts", the low 30s for a couple of hours doesn't bother brugs.
