Rooting and grafting Brugmansia

Brugmansia are tricky and yet simple.
Many hybrids of Brugmansia are so simple to root. First suggestion, run the felled remains of a Brugmansia tree with a lawnmower. Toss soil over them to barely cover them or just barely leave the top sides exposed. Water. This method works with most Brugmansia and results in hundreds of new Brugmansia plants.
Candida double white Brugmansia can be rooted from green or hardwood cuttings. I have used very minute green offshoots that were not as wide as my pinky nail cut in quarters from this hybrid. The main idea behind rooting green offshoots of some Brugmansia hybrids is to pull of the majority of the roots and sink at least half of the cutting into a well aerated soil that retains moisture for at least 4 hours, but no more than 24 hours. I have rooted cuttings in pure peat though, only watering once heavily and then leaving them be until they began to wilt. Watering them again, and then leaving them be until they were wilting again. Pure sand or pure perlite can be used as well to root most Brugmansia hybrids. Brugmansia are most prone to rot at the base of the cutting and continue to rot upwards. If one has a tricky Brugmansia that is hard to root even from a hardwood cutting one can simply wrap the plant around the part that one is going to be making a cutting from with wet moss and a wrap to keep it in place. This will form root buds on the outer layer of bark before it is removed. Cut all leaves off of the cutting a day or two prior to its removal to allow it to heal some. Remove the cutting and the moss wrap and you should see nodes that have formed if you have kept it wet for anywhere from 24 hours to 2 weeks. Cut, and plant in a lose well aerated soil. Water as frequently as it dries out and wilts. The more aerated the soil the better. Another trick I have found is to simply place a layer of about 1 inch of perlite where the cut end is, a layer of good soil under neath the perlite and below the cut end that is suspended in the perlite. This keeps the cutt end that generally develops rot the fastest from developing any rot as it is better aerated. Layer above the perlite with good gardening or potting soil.
Making Brugmansia grafts.
Method one, place cuttings in the corners of two square pots. Root them both. After they are fully rooted pull both out of square pots and wrap them together at 2 or 2 places using a 1/2 to quarter inch wrap. Place in a pot together. Let them get over the shock of being moved and resume normal fast growth. Remove bandages and make cuts that face each other. Wrap them back together in the same manner. This process makes a very nice graft in about 4-6 weeks in most cases. The actual graft only takes 2-3 weeks to fully form.
Method two, using a fully rooted large Brugmansia, place a seedling or rooted cutting still in its pot alongside the branch it is to be grafted to. Secure the pot to the branch with a wrap. Make cuts that face each other on the branch and on the seedling or rooted cutting in a pot. Wrap the cuts together. When making your cuts remember that you are just removing a bit of the outer bark. Not enough to actually see the inner wood, but it is okay if you do see a bit as they will heal up. Water and fertilize the rooted cutting in its pot and water and fertilize the large fully rooted Brugmansia as well. After the graft is fully formed, gently cut the smaller cutting or seedling to remove it from its roots and the small pot. You can then either leave the grafted Brugmansia in the top of the tree attached to the branch or you can cut the branch just below the graft and root the new graft on its own.
Hope this helps,
Brugmansia

I missed this the first time, thanks for the info. I'm putting all this in a file now:) Maybe it will cut down on my questions. I doubt it, but just maybe.

Tig, how on Earth could you have anything but questions? Enjoy your new found addiction. Soon enough your yard will be so fragrant the neighbors will either complain they can't smell the flowers in their own yard or they will be begging you for cuttings. Drive by cuttings will happen. Rest assured I have had several drive by cuttings.

This message was edited Monday, Jul 30th 3:06 PM

they wouldn't dare!!!!!!!!!

Brugmansia you said it was here some where so I was also insterested in reading it again so here it is

Thanks bunches Irish, I hope that tid bit helps and perhaps some of our more experienced grafters can add to it as time goes on.

Brugman, I am very interested in grafting. Does it really make a difference in growth when a slow growing sensitive Brug is grafted on a vigorous robust plant?

B. versicolor are very sensitive up here due to the rough climate. I would like to graft on B. suaveolens to get heavy bloomers.

Generally speaking yes, but depending on where you graft them you will still have still have to trim the leaves and or side shoots. I have some very fast growing peach and pink versicolor types that bloomed in the first year from seed. As for freezing, I don't keep a hybrid if it can't stand a freeze. Amber Rose and Dr.D are very versicolor like...although they are multihybrids between Dr.Sues and Ecuador pink. I used to graft varigated jungle cacti onto non varigates as the varigate versions typical respond like desert cacti...ie slow to root and very prone to rot and slow growers. Same thing with many forms of crested or monstrose cacti. I don't know of too many plants that don't respond favorably to grafting, but as I am quickly learning there is no such thing as impossible or never. One also has to look at grafting incompatibilities. Some plants can be grafted to each other, but will not stay grafted for too long and will actually die if they stay grafted. Such a graft is good for a quick boost in size if there is no other suitable grafting stock...but that is most generally in reference to cacti. I mention this as I have not tried grafting arborea to aurea...I think this may prove to be incompatible graft, but I won't know till I try. I haven't tried that graft as I haven't had any arborea to play with. I think I will try an arborea graft to candida though just to see.

I would like to try it. We have so called slow growing underlayers, whereon fast growing fruit trees are grafted on. These underlayers reduces the growth down to more than a half. It should work with Brugmansias also. I could use Marie Gerrits or Sommertraum as underlayer for B. versicolor Kaskade, Guadeloupe and the orange colored x candida Estella. They might grow better in my rough climate as on their own roots. How do you do that? Could you make a drawing to show me how you make your graftings and how successful will it be? Does grafting withstand wind pressure? Dr. Preissel put this in question!

Monica... i hope this site on grafting will help u ... http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/grafting.html ... hope that helps. ma vie

Monika, my grafts most certainly withstand the Florida winds, but as with everything....Everything is relative. If the graft has not fully formed or hardened off then its much weaker being just a green barely formed graft....Just one question though....why question something and then not follow up with an experiment or set of experiments to see? To simply question something and then to not try....Surely there is a faster way to get to the moon, but if we don't try we will never arrive.
As for how successful a graft is, I can't promise any success rate. I can tell you that I am successful with my grafts most of the time and that I find the easiest time to graft is when a plant is actively growing or at its peak growth rate. The more you disturb a plant the slower the graft will form. As a general rule, if the graft has not sealed within 2-3 weeks I discard it as a failure, but I also don't check a graft until the 2-3 week as checking the status of a graft is the main reason for a graft not being successful as this pulls the immature graft appart in my experience. I have not been trained to graft nor have I access to any grafting tools. My tools are those available from the local wal-mart or pharmacy. I am sure a more experienced grafter or someone who actually had someone teach them how to graft may do better to explain this whole process to you, but I will try to post some pictures here in the very near future of the grafts I make as I make them.

Thanks for pointing me to this post Georgia! Monika-did you try it? Searching for anything on grafting brugs now!

brugman-have you tried it?

What a wonderful thread I stumbled upon!
I had wondered if brugs could be grafted. I thought of taking 2 straight cuttings of approximate diameter, cutting out a third vertically from each cutting, pressing the two exposed faces together, binding them tightly and then rooting them I might get a grafted, single trunk brug. I only THOUGHT of doing this, but didn't execute, thinking the brugs would not respond to grafting. The next best thing, I thought, was to bind 2 cuttings together, root them together and grow the two trunks in close proximity.
I have several growing like this, but now I'm going to follow Brugmansias' method 2, outlined in his June 20 instructions.

By the way, Brugmansia also suggests a method of rooting in layers of perlite and peatmoss. I have used this method with great success with a small modification: I take a 6" round plastic container, made from cutting the top off clear plastic beverage containers and drill 2 holes at the bottom for drainage. I then line the bottom with perlite, about an inch (for drainage). I follow with an inch layer of peatmoss. I then place a bundle of cuttings, their rooting ends dipped in rooting powder right on the peatmoss. I gently pack additional peatmoss around the bundle, shaking the bundle to allow some of the peat moss to enter the interior of the bundle. If need be I may place a rubber band around the bundle to keep them stationary. I place the pots on top of a propagating heat mat at a temperature of 60-75 degrees F. I check the peatmoss to see if more water is added: dark if moist, light if dry.
In about 2 to 3 weeks the roots are visible through the clear plastic. When I think the roots are well developed I then remove the rooted bundle, shake the perlite and peatmoss that cling to the roots, gently separate the roots (swished in a bucket of water will always separate them cleanly) and transplant each rooted cutting individually into 4" pots.

Bumping up for Tony

Thanks Shirley. Very interesting. Jeanette