Can someone tell me if tip pruning will encourage a plant to form a y? This works for me on most other things. I've had one pink for two years and I alway let her do as she will in the fear that I will upset her and be punished Now I'm rooting several and would like to start shaping them at 18" if it's possible. Thanks.
encouraging Y formation
Your other plants do not require a Y to start producing flower buds .
Brugs Y , I suspect , from hormonal changes within the plant cells.
You cannot hasten this change buy cutting growth tips off.
Any more than you can with humans , they need to grow to the individuals own
clock before releasing hormones that cause such changes as we grow.
I hope you get the ideaf what I am trying to explain.
These are my own thoughts on the mystery of the elusive brugmansi 'Y'.
(((*-*)))
Others have experimented with this cutting back idea.
From what I have seen and read it does not make a brug flower earlier ....
Most of the time they flower later.
Trying to grow these rainforest tropicals in the states is stressfull enough
as most do not start to bloom until mid or late Summer.
Yes.. I tried it as an experiment this summer since there were many posting on the subject. One person said that it worked for them.
I had a cutting that had two branches/trunks. I also had two sister seedlings. I pinched one side of the cutting and one of the seedlings. Both of the unpinched sides/plants "y"ed before the pinched sides.. one pinched side finally 'y'ed a month and a half later..the other hasn't yet.. (I had to bring it inside for winter)
Twiggy, are you talking about trying to force the brug to put out flowering wood early or just to get sidebranching? If you want side growth pinching out the tips will make it bushier. Topping the branches off will cause lots of side nodes to branch out.
Also if you pull a main stem down or lay the brug on its side, you will get all the nodes shooting up shoots. Great way to get lots of other plants from one fast.
I cut the ends off my branches once they start getting too long on my trees to encourage the side growth so I get a full canopy and lots of blooms. If it wasn't still dark here I would go take a picture of one I did a couple of weeks ago. I am getting a really nice, full canopy now when before I had just a few long branches coming out from the trunk.
I am forever shaping my brugs, so do not be afraid to. Just be aware of your first Y and realize if you cut below it, your plant will need to Y again before it flowers.
We are going into our rainy season now, so I try not to cut on my brugs for my biggest problem over winter is rot. Cold plus wet is tough on brugs.
I'm wanting to have full looking plants rather than sprawling and floppy. I'm thinking the more branching, the more flowers. I also had some dmail on this and I'm getting the idea that this has a lot to do with zone. I'm in 8a. It freezes back some and then grows to about 6 feet with only 1 or 2 ys per branch. It grows quickly but once it blooms it seems to almost stop growing. First blooms come in late May. I think I'll try it on a couple branches on the big one and get serious with the young ones. Thank all of you for your input.
It would have helped if you had not asked for a 'Y'.
Good Luck