New to Brugs

Hello Everyone.
This is the first time that I have visited this forum and I have questions but will keep it simple. I was given 20 brug cuttings this past weekend and included are 6 different types (Charles Grimaldi, Jean Pasko, Frosty Pink, Candida Double White, B. Suaveolens and Insignis Gold). As shown in the pic below, they are sitting in a couple of inches of water in pails. The cuttings range from 2 ft to 4ft. The woman who gave them to me said to leave them in the water until May, pot 'em up and plant the whole pot in the ground after last frost. She also said to change the water once every week. Does this sound right to you? Is there anything I could be doing differently to optimize their outcomes? BTW, the roots on these things are purdy long and the same woman also wants me to take 30 more of her cuttings because she's "done" with brugs.

Thanks in advance,
Erynne

Welcome to the Brug Forum! You sure are jumping in here with so many cuttings. LOL. Your cuttings look just great. I will leave advice to someone who lives in your zone though.

I know a lot of people do it that way, in water, to conserve on room during the winter. I guess if you have a good warm place to grow them over winter, you could pot them up.

Can you tell us why your benefactor is done with brugs? Sounds like they had a hard time.

Hi Kell,
Thanks for the welcome. The woman who gave them to me, has many brugs of her own potted up in her basement that she will keep. Up until recently, she was selling them via her website and possibly ebay but found it too much to keep up with regards to shipping and packaging; she also sells many seeds for other plants on ebay. I think the hard time that she had was just in keeping up with everything. It seems to be a lot of work! Her own brugs are mighty fine specimens and I thought I was in a brug jungle,lol. I will be caring for these over winter but will share them when the time comes because there's no way I can keep them all. Basically, if no one wanted the cuttings, the woman said they were going to be taken to the dump and somehow I just couldn't reckon with that. I know it's going to be alot of work, but I'm going to give it my best shot in caring for them.

Erynne

I am sure you will do great with them. Brugs are easy plants! It is amazing what they tolerate and grow in a wide range of conditions. You have so many of the same kind, you could do a couple of different ways and see which works best for you! Do you have a GH?

Took me a minute to figure out what GH meant. At first I thought why is kell asking me if I have a "good husband"? Maybe I need a good husband to put up with me and all these brug cuttings, lol.

No I don't have my own GH yet but my neighbor has one and she's supposed to moving next February. She said she may want to unload on me so we'll see if it happens.

Erynne

Congrats on getting the brug cuttings. Also a big welcome to this forum. There are seveal members from CA. Maybe some of them will come by and give you some help. I do know that from listening to people who pot up in the pots with holes around the sides and then put in the ground, it is easier to get them up in the fall. If you are just going to start fresh with cuttings, I'd just put them in the ground and forget the pots. The freeze will heave the roots the next spring, making them easier to dig out. It will be fun seeing your brugs in bloom next summer. Before long you will be totally addicted to them. Have fun with your new project.

Thats a great gift.. your ready to go.. Great selection to..

Thank you Brugie and Hope! I'm still fussing over these cuttings like a mother hen, lol. I think I'm going to have to cut some of them into smaller portions to mail to friends for next year. It's just making the right cut that's got me all paranoid. I'm going to have treat this like a project indeed and soak up any advice & literature I can get my hands on. Ideally, I'd like to have these cuttings sitting in pots of soil but I don't even know if I can do this without killing them. It just seems weird to me to have them sitting in water for the next 5 months,lol. Well back to researching these babies.

Erynne

Wow!
You sure got started off with some fantastic cuttings. Welcome to the world of Brugs.....

Hi Erynne and welcome.

It comes down to space. Where you will keep them, is it cool or warm? I'm not one of the experts, but have learned from them and have found that (for me) they do better in water in cool temps and in soil in warm temps. I am a firm believer in the 'bubbler' if you've heard the term. If not, it's simply an aquarium pump that you run to 1 or more water containers, keeping oxygen in the water and eliminating the need to change water every few days. I like having some 'tall' plants to start the spring with, so some of my 'tall cuttings' in bubblers are 6 ft. I also have 'short' cuttings in other bubblers. With the short ones, when the roots are about an inch, I bring them from the gh (cool) to an inside grow room (warm) and pot them up and put them under lights.

It would be so much easier to explain if I could add photos, but can't do that from work.

If your cuttings were from large plants, they more than likely are all 'above Y' cuttings and the larger you keep them the sooner you'll get blooms. Hope this helps some.

erynne, a toasty welcome from corte madera, ca! =)))

i'm new to brugs this year, and learning along. wow, on the cuttings you're starting with. you sure will have plenty of blooms sooner than most. i see "Y"s all over. lucky you!

ask away if you have questions. those in the know are truly helpful, and very generous with their plants and knowledge.

i don't know much, but will surely cheer you on along the way!

annapet

Erynne, welcome to Dave's Garden's. You will love participating in the brug. forum. Everyone is so nice and helpful and you will learn alot.

Your brug. cuttings look great !! You will be loving it this summer.

Patricia

Again, thanks for the welcomes! You folks sure are helpful!
The room where they are sitting now is slightly cooler than room temp but not at all uncomfortable. The laundry room is warmer, has more space, a sink, and a spot where proper lighting could be installed so this where I'd like to have them eventually. So I'm guessing that I can safely put these brug cuttings in soil??
Linda, with your talk about bubblers, what keeps the taller cuttings standing up straight? No tipping? Neat idea!
These cutting did come from well-established brugs because the trunks of the parent plants (hope that's the right word) looked so thick, like 5 or 6 of my cuttings put together!!

Considering what I've read on here and other places, the still water that the cuttings are sitting should be changed more than once per week. I kinda thought that info wasn't completely accurate.
Now you guy's got me excited about this "Y" thing, lol. I didn't realize how important they were.

Thanks a ton,
Erynne

Here are my tall cuttings in the gh. I stapled several long ribbons to a support stud and tie them up. The pump keeps the water fresh and you don't have to change it. I add as it evaporates.

Here are the shorties.

This is one I REALLY wanted, so when the roots started forming I decided to cut it in half,

pot up the bottom and put the top back in the bubbler. It (the top part) now is forming good roots and I will have 2 plants

Woo hoo! That's an amazing set up there! Thanks for posting those pics. So air is just being blown in there to circulate the H2O.....it's all making so much sense now! For the pieces of tubing, do you just have connectors of some sort so that each container gets air? My sister's DH has a huge fish addiction and has more unused pumps and tubes laying around that he's not using......gotta make a phone call, lol.
I really liked how you recycled those containers there.

Erynne

Erynne, welcome!!
Linda, what a neat thing to do! Is the part you potted up sitting in water as in bubbler? Or is it just reflected light? So you can pot up a little guy as long as there are roots showing and a node or two and put the rest back in to make more roots.. how kewl is that!

Barb

A warm welcome to you Erynne! You have a great selection. I put an airstone on the end of the tubing to make the bubbles. You can keep them in the water all winter long if you want to, just keep adding water.
Dan