I am seriouly thinking about not having any brugs next year, except for my Maya and Peaches and Cream. The fighting of all the bugs has really been bad this year. I have about 20 brugs out this year and the bugs have taken them over. Then all the watering and feeding has just about done me in. I am going to have to think hard and long about planting more then 2 or three next year.
I think my towel is in the ring.
I'm throwing in the towel....
Have any of you had a problem with moles? I have put 1 inch chicken wire on half of my perennial bed so they are coming up on the other side. I had a brug planted in there in a pot with the 2 inch holes like Monika showed to do. The mole came into the pot and right up thru the trunks of the brug.
Another one he took the entire Rudbeckia plant right down the hole. I found 2 little pieces of branch that broke off. It was blooming, had about 4 nice flowers on it.
2pugdogs I am with you 100%. I love the Brugs but they have truly done me in this year with all the bugs, and water, I have about thirty in pots ready to give away, it will kill me but when it means your sanity you gotta act. LOL right now I have about thirty in bud and the bugs are eating the buds befor they can open. even the japanese beatles are attacking them.
Doris, I think all of us feel like that at times. If I have another year like last year, I'm throwing in the towel also. LOL The insects are really bad this year. Some of my rose blooms have so amny on them, you can't see any bloom. It's like they're immune to anything I spray them with.
I just came in from outside. All mine look terrible too from this heat wave we have had. They are actually burned. But I can't complain too loudly for I have not worked very hard all season. If this were spring, I would be about on target. Plus I have spider mites in my courtyard. They took hold so fast. Shoot.
Kell, the heat wave got a couple of mine too. Literally fried the tops down about 6 inches. They just crumpled. I bought a canopy to put over them and that really helped a lot. They still had the heat but not the direct sun rays. That is what was burning them. I found a couple with bugs of some kind and one with a leaf with spider mites.
Strangest thing is that the leaf with the spider mites was the bottom leaf on the plant. I have never had that happen before. I will have to watch and make sure they weren't on their way to the new leaves at the top.
Jeanette
We had heatwave here too for more than a month now, but we were lucky. Only a few leaves got roasted so far. The rest of the garden looks like a god forsaken desert. The grass got sunburned and most of the perennials. The roses still grow, but most of the flowers dry out a few days after opening. They are completely dried out, but still nich red, cyclamen, yellow and the white is brownish LOL LOL The garden soil has turned into dust and flyingsand and is dry at least 4 foot in the underground. It takes a sinflood to make it a garden again :) Its nice though, because we spend a lot of time at the beaches and get a decent suntan and saltwater in our noses ROFLOL Nothing is so bad, that it ain' t good for something.
I cross my fingers, that some of you regain interest in Brugmansia. Doing some recapitulation of recent years hybridizing it might have been a mistake to hybridize for beauty and rarity alone. Bug resistence and performing well under all kind of weathers (or beeing realistic about the limits of a hybrid) is long lasting qualities, but beauty without those is not a pretty sight. In recent years there has been done a lot of work making cultural plants such as corn, rye, apples, tobacco etc pest resistant, so why not work at Brugs from the same viewpoint?
I have a friend in Dallas that puts her washer hose out the window to let the water escape into her flower beds. She has actually attached a longer hose to it so she can put the rinse water into another bed. I think she uses a more natural soap, like Ivory Snow. anyone tried this during the droughts? My aunt used to use her dishwater on her roses. She just poured it onto them to rid herself of bugs and at the same time, add phosphates to her roses. This was before the days of dishwashers and when everyone used laundry powder to wash dishes with too.
Heat creates stress to brugs. Stress makes the brugs unhealthy. Unhealthy brugs attract insects. You just can't overlook health issues when dealing with brugs and insects. Even if a brug has lush green growth and few flowers that in itself can sometimes be a sign of overfeeding. Overfeeding makes weak brugs. Like an obese human that huffs and puffs to walk across the room. Still health related. This is just my opinion and I certainly don't have the magic formula lol!
I've learned to just let brugs do their own thing and not worry about it. The majority will survive the hard times. There's gonna be good years and bad years. Cooler weather always makes things better.
I imagine the brugs in their natural habitats do not look like prime specimens of lush green, many flowered beauties. I'll just betcha they look scraggly to some degree.
Mine look like h---. The leaves are all rolled up and shriveled up and they are turning yellow and of course they have all the holes in the leaves. I know having the temp. in the triple digits for over 3 weeks doesn't help, that's right I said triple digits, any where from 100* to 111* but it can really get you down. I do have buds coming on and getting ready to open, but I imagine the bugs will be eating them. I just got back from my sons place in Sugar Land Tx. just SW from Houston and it was cooler there then it is here. They were even getting rain. It never got over 96* the whole time I was there. And to think I came home.
My DH was doing all my watering and he told me I need to cut back next year and not plant so much. He said it was taking him about 2 hours twice a day to water. Then still the plants weren't looking very good.
Oh well I feel better I have just finished venting, but I do think I am going to cut way back on brugs and maybe only have 1 or 2 instead of 20 or more.
Linda
Tonny you are a Pollyanna. Do you know what that is? Someone who always finds something good in bad situations. LOL Suntans yet!!! You are suppose to stay out of that hot sun. I have moles to prove it. Besides the ones in my garden. LOL
When you discover that magic pill Tonny I'll buy. Messenger is suppose to make the brugs more resistant to diseases and pests. I tho't pests too?? Didn't stop those pests on mine. Just made the foliage more appetizing.
I don't know what is going on with this crazy weather. If we get this heat at all it is usually in August. I am just worried what August will bring.
Woodspirit that is called "gray water". Or, previously used??? Before sewers people used spetic systems (I still do) and before that it was, can't remember the name, someone will, but yes, it was used on the gardens. Wash water, bath water, dish water. Or just throw it out the door onto the flowers etc.
I agree on the overfeeding, Vicki. A kind lady in Germany and I had a long talk about overfeeding and what it does to Brugs. We were in particular discussing B. x flava and B. vulcanicola. She made me see, why I didn' t have any luck having seedpods. Simply overfeeding. SInce our talk I stopped recommending large doses of fertilizers. I take things from the bottom now and only feeds them water and will only fertilize, if the plants show any symptoms of defiencies and then I will only feed a small dose to figure out, what their actual need is. I also expect PH-value to play a role in plant health, sometimes it can even mean the difference between life or death as overfeeding plus acidose or baseose not only as you mention leads to attacks from bugs, but also outbreak of latent virusses, bacterial rot and 'staengelbrand'. I know that today we can buy a lot of fancy growth promoters, fungicides and pesticides and it will also make the plants look well for a short time, but in the long run the origin of these 'attacks' still remain untreated. That is my thoughts on the subject, but when nutrition and ph is balanced there is still all kind of reason in hybridizing with naturally resistent plants ... and also put the hybrids into categories, that would perform well in a certain environment like for instance B. sanguinea, that has special requirements. B. versicolor and B. insignis would for an example love to grow in a warm environment with moist air, but B. aurea and B. arborea is naturally suited to a temperate climate and don' t mind a bit dry air occationally.
Jeanette, maybe I am a Pollyanna LOL I try my best to not to think in problems, but in solutions. Yes, the suntan improved a bit. I don' t know about staying out of the sun LOL I function well there as also in shade as long as I eat plenty of raw vegetables, fruits and get a lot of water to drink :) Reg. moles ... I would hate to be a mole anywhere right now. Snui, that is our youngest dog, she digged out a mole today and showed me and you got to believe me: The mole didn' t say a word.
Linda, I would say the same thing :) There is a lot of work in growing them, so they just have to be worthwhile. I am cutting back too ... and again :) Only three of Bruno Nicholais B. x flava seedlings have proven worth the while and they rest I will have to cull, if I can not find takers. It has to be of the entire plants as the cuttings are near impossible to root. 99% of my own seedlings will go the same way. Some are 100% mitemagnets and in some the flowers don' t even have time to get real color. The flowerwalls are too thin. They either get brown on the second day or a light breeze would make them irrecognizable as flowers.
UPDATE - I knew it! The lady that picked up the brug asked if she could bring it back because she can't keep up with watering it twice a day. It's unusually hot here (Global warming?) and she said it's wilting in part shade. Anyway, I told her that I can't take it back because I don't have any room since I replaced it with another large plant (just a very slight fib, OK, a big lie). I get this, "But I don't know what to do with it" line from her. Finally I suggested that she do what I did and list it on Craigslist under "FREE" and if that didn't work, haul it to a dumpster and pry the plant out and keep the pot.
Yesterday morning while out picking up dog logs, I spotted pure white leaves all over the tops of my Chuck Grimaldi, so I'm thinking, WOW! I have a mutation and with pure white leaves, I can start cuttings and sell them on eBay as a new hybrid. Upon further checking and touching, I realized they weren't "white, white", they were "white burnt to a crispy white." Another dream shattered! You know, on the Garden Products forum, there is a thread about "The Coolest Garden Tool I Ever Bought." It's about one of those flame torch deals to kill weeds.....which gave me a whole new outlook on something I can do to these brugs. I'm evil and I know it, but at least I'm proud of it.
chunx I don't blame you about telling that lie, I would have done the same, you were nice enough to give the plant away, let the person that took it find someone to give it to as well. On mine, I will finish this summer and fall out with my brugs and then decide which one will go in the GH (only 2), then mother nature will have to take its own course. I only hope we will at lease have one freeze this winter, with the way the weather has been going with a mild winter and a terrible hot summer never know what our winter will be like.
So if starting in Nov. you don't see me much on the Brug section, and someone does come up with a new Brug that is bug resistance would someone please send me a d-mail and let me know. Because I would be very interested in having one that the bugs doesn't like. I'm not joking I am serious.
Linda
I found someone locally who wanted some. He works for the County and plants some of the public areas. He has access to a large greenhouse and wants to get lots going for next year. He has a few this year in different parks etc. He just left with the 2nd load, that took care of everything I had still in pots. This fall he will come back when it's time to 'dig or die'. There are a few I will keep, but very few. I feel like I've been in a bad relationship where you give, give, give and get very little back.
I really think the trick is to just have 1 or 2 so they do not run you ragged and eat all your money. I probably have the most brug friendly climate of most people here and even I am screaming this year about them.
And my brugs are such wimps. They couldn't even take 1 day in the 90s.
A lot of chuckles on this thread. I can't give them up just yet but they do wear me out most days with the watering. The brugs end up wilting before I can get to each one with water everyday. I've told them to quit wining or the neighbors will see, I will get to them as soon as I can. I have to water each one every day and sometimes their not happy with that. My hose's don't reach all of them so I lug around a 2 gal watering can and it can take a while to get everything happy again. I will have to cut back on some of mine this fall. I can not house all of them over the winter since some decided to get so large on me this year. I'm not complaining. I just hate to have to pic and choose.
Woodspirit, I use gray water in my garden beds. I run a PVC pipe out the window from the porch where the washer is and into a large trash can and hand water with a watering can. I don't have the convenience of public water. I still have 2 old systerns. I have to call a water company and have water trucked in. I have learned to be conservative. I just had the pump go out of my second (garden only) systern so I will have to pick up a new one this weekend.
Dott
Ok, I am crying "uncle". I am finding something, not sure what they are, on several. They are sucking the juice out of them from the bottom side. The leaves aren't splotchy but little pin points all over, solid. Are they a type of aphid I have not seen before? (Anyone seen this before?)
I have started with the systemic so will see if that helps. Fortunately we are finally getting out of the 90s and triple digits. It is dropping like a rock to 71 degrees with thunder storms Sunday.
I have about 30 and live in a very rural area where I don't think anyone has ever seen them before so I don't know who to give them to. Maybe that is the answer??? The unsuspecting??? Is that a nasty thing to do, or what? Problem is, my phone would be ringing off the hook.
Tonny, you might have the answer with that food business. I have been giving mine cal-mag only a couple times this summer and triple 20 a couple of times. We'll see.
Jeanette
Jeanette, the small pin points are often made by capsid bugs. They can be hard to discover as they sense, when we come near the plants and hide underneath the leaves, until we leave again. They prefer to suck on young leaves and young buds.
edited to insert a link to google pictures of capsid bugs.
This message was edited Jul 28, 2006 6:09 AM
edited again to past the link ... i must be getting old LOL
http://images.google.dk/images?hl=da&q=capsid%20bugs&sa=N&tab=wi
Tonny, the oldest man in Denmark
This message was edited Jul 28, 2006 6:10 AM
LOL kell, now you know what we are going through all the time, if you had our bugs, no rain, too much rain, too cool, too hot and then a drenching like last night with 3" of rain and wind and out to pick up about 15 that got blown over I just don't think you would have rented lots for your extra brugs. I am happy you have them so you can keep posting pictures for us.
Doris
Hey Old Man Tonny!!!
I looked at the link and the bugs all looked different to me. BUT, whoever did the link did not say what you do to get rid of them. So, what you are saying is that they could go to all the plants out there. I treated the 2 that I saw damage on with systemic. I plan on treating all of them tomorrow with Hi-Yield Disyston. A straight systemic that has nothing else in it.
What do you think, the oldest man in Denmark??????
Forget the brugs, Doris. If I had to go through what you do all the time, if I had your bugs, no rain, too much rain, too cool, too hot and then a drenching like last night with 3" of rain and wind I would MOVE ASAP!!!! That is no way to live.
Well Tonny,
I couldn't wait to see if the systemic worked. I took all but 2 leaves off of 2 plants that had those nasties. Then I treated those so we will see what happens now.
Doris, I feel bad for you but just when we do decide to throw in the towel we get a new bloom and just cannot resist giving them one more try. I was gone for 4 hours yesterday and came home and 4 of my brugs were wilted so bad they were lying on the deck. It seems they grow so fast that they fill up their pot and then you can't keep them even damp. How many times do you have to repot a year? I guess the answer is putting them in the ground but I just don't have enough places to put them in the ground.
Jeanette - You said, "I guess the answer is putting them in the ground but I just don't have enough places to put them in the ground."
I say: Oh Jeanette, my confused yet sweet and lovely little pear blossom, please allow me to offer a suggestion. If the best solution is to plant them in the ground, I'm sure you could take a shovel with you to the nearest landfill and "plant" them there. Believe me, you'll be thanking me later.
Chunx, you so and so (repeat what you called me) LOL, you live in the heart of the best of the best. And you are complaining???? Aren't you the one that said you stay there because you know of no place else where you could live in a $??? house with a value of $800K? Just you remember one thing. You can't take it with you.
San Diego has the most constant weather in the world. Now, you quit your crying and whining. Just because EVERYBODY is having bad weather this year and those brugs don't happen to like it, you "throw in the towel". A real quitter.
Now, if you like, when the season is over for me I will send you a list of the brugs I have and you tell me which ones you would like cuttings of.
Jeanette - Now, now, my tiny brugmansia bud about to bloom, I never cry and whine at the same time. I just whine a lot. And no, I never said I stay here because of your reason given. I stay here because I'm too lazy to pack up all my junk to move. And I also said that this is the only place where a small cardboard based home sprayed with stucco and sitting on a cement slab is selling for $700 K. I most certainly never said it was WORTH it. I think I said you could buy the same house in any other state for around $75 K.
Me, a quitter? Well silly girl, of course I am. I'm a guy and we're entitled! Now don't forget, I still have my Frosty Pink and double white that I like, although they both have bug holes all over them and the buds are now deformed. I think the Chuckie Grimaldi is totally shot for this season. My plan for next year is pure cosmos and marigolds, nothing else. How could I go wrong? Yes my dear, I'm a devoted Master Gardener as long as it doesn't take much work. They even named a snail killer after me - Sluggo.
Snort! Giggle, Snort!
I can't quit - I've got too much blood, sweat and tears invested. Doesn't mean it doesn't cross my mind occasionally. ;-)
Do you believe what the houses are going for Chunx? In my neighborhood, people sell their house and move to another state and buy huge houses and still have tons of money to live on. Their houses are their retirement money. The only trouble is you can't take the weather with you when you move.
I am a lazy gardener too, but this week I have fertilized, sprayed Neem and and even pruned the whole yard. I am exhausted. I need a new hobby.
Kell, those people you talk about are moving into my county. OR, they are refinancing theirs down their and buying up here for their retirement or investment. Even our weather is probably worth what they are getting for their homes down there and enough to live on for the rest of their lives. BUT, I am not going to tell them where my Huckleberry field is, nor my Mushroom stash, or my best fishing hole is. They are going to have to work to find those.
Isn't that Chunx the pitts? Here he tried to make us think he was thriough with brugs and all the time he was holding out with Frosty, Charlie, (Chuckie) and a holy Double White. Even Mary thinks he is crazy. I heard her snorting back there.
And you better believe he has been out there doing the same thing you have this weekend. Fertilizing, watering, neem, etc.
Jeanette - My petite little aphid, I've never owned any Neem although I've looked for it at HD and Lowe's. You're right about the rest of the stuff though, plus I planted a bunch of things this morning since it cooled off.
I also want you to know that I've made a decision. I'm going to sell my house, move to Ione, WA., buy a huge RV, park it on your front yard, and then you will have the extreme pleasure of cooking, cleaning, and doing my laundry for me. Isn't that what life is all about - serving your fellow man? I expect you to even run the illegal satellite cable line to my widescreen. See you in a month or so.
So now I have been downgraded from a tiny brug bud to a little aphid. Thanks a lot Sluggo. You're the one that said it. What are you going to do about that big waterfall you built not too long ago? I know, put it on top of the RV. Whoops, you don't have the RV yet. Better get that for sale sign up.
And while I am cleaning, cooking, and laundering your clothes you will be gutting my deer, tanning the hide of my cougar, smoking my fish and baking me a Huckleberry pie!!! Sounds like a fair trade to me.
I will invite all of the people out of the hills and charge them to watch the movie every night on your big screen TV. I can hardly wait.
Jeanette - My precious little earthworm casting, you actually expect me to bake and then gut Bambi? It's time for me to call PETA but it will have wait until I return from Joe's Whoppaburger. I don't think I ever mentioned anything about a "trade."
You want the waterfall kit? The pump screen keeps getting clogged with assorted stuff. It was another one of my genius ideas that didn't quite work out the way I wanted. Now please tell me what you would do with a cougar hide? If you insist, I guess I could spread some self-tanning Coppertone on it and see if that tans it to your satisfaction. By the way, when you smoke a fish, which end do you light?
You are going to call PETA after you go eat at Joe's Whoppaburger I wonder what PETA would have to say about that?
Jnette, I hate to say this but I think Chunx is downgrading you everytime he adds a thread. What a hoot. I can't wait to read what your come back is going to be, this has been more fun reading. I really love what you had to say about him in your last remark. Especially about watch a movie everynight on his big screen. He didn't say anything about baking the Huckleberry pie, he must be into baking.
ROTFLOL
2pugs - Chunx does not bake, you just didn't catch that. It's in the first line of my response. I also don't cook unless it goes into the microwave or I'm having guests. It's not that hate to cook as much as I can't cook very well and I prefer to buy my frozen food items in bulk at Costco. I love the taste of preservatives, artificial ingredients, and lots of sugar and cornstarch. Now if Jeanette (my special little cockroach corpse) would like a pie from me, that's fine. I can always stop at Ralph's and pick her up a frozen bake-and-serve one. And why would you ever have the feeling I would downgrade my dearest Jeanette? She's my buddy and I'd never consider doing that!
Also 2pugs, I meant to tell you an interesting story about brugs in Kansas. My mom lives in Lawrence and one Christmas I took her back a small brug in a one gallon container that I had started from a cutting. She put it the basement and followed all of my directions I had given her on how to overwinter them (we don't have to do that here). So in the spring, she repots it, puts it outside, waters, fertilizes, and waits and waits. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger but doesn't bloom. Winter arrives again and she tosses it back in the basement and follows the same procedure. In the summer, she decided to plant it in the ground and watered and fertilized it religiously all summer. Finally she calls me and tells me it's loaded with buds and she can hardly wait till it blooms since she's never seen them in person before. Right before the buds opened, they got an unexpected heavy freeze and it killed it to the ground. I must admit that I laughed, but she wasn't too amused. She never asked for another one.
What was that name, SLUGGO? Bet your mom calls you that behind your back. And, I remember why you said you call yourself CHUNX!! Thought I would forget didn't you?
You can't gut a deer, tan a hide, clean and smoke a fish, bake a pie (Costco is 80 miles from me), you can't even get a PACKAGED waterfall to work right, just what CAN you do?
Oh, that's right, you can hook up an illegal big screen TV to a cable so you don't have to pay for it. Can you make popcorn for the hillbillies that are going to come down here to watch that big screen whatcha callit?
You actually expected your mother to take care of one of these brugs and get it to bloom when you can't even do it yourself????
Now you know why 2 Pugs, Mary, and Kell think you are crazy to think that piece of stucco you are living in is worth $700K. Like YOU said, you are too lazy to get yourself out of it to even think of moving.
You just send us all pictures of your yard (without the brugs) and including the waterfall.
EXCUSE me Chunx, I missed the part about having guests and you don't cook unless it comes with microwave preservatives, directions and cartons???? Good grief man!! do those people come back for more?? You did say people didn't you? Or did I just assume they were? Or are they able to come back?
Do you serve those Whopperburgers with fork and knife??? Frozen pies?? At Ralphies yet!!
Yes 2 Pugs, Chunx and I met in the brug forum I think it was and took a liking to each other right off the bat when I thought he was a she. Insulted the bejezzus out of him/her but he/she will get over it sometime soon.
Hope Dave's little minions don't censor me for that last sentence. I am on strike 2 already. LOL
This reminds of me a skit that was a spoof of Point, Counterpoint they used to do on Saturday Night Live, way back in the 70's. Too funny.
You two are killing me, but keep it up, it puts a smile on my face. Yes Chunx should be able to take care of the hillbillies, he did mention that he only cooks using the microwave. So he will be able to pop the pop corn. You are right Jnette he said guests, guests doesn't always mean people.
His poor mother I bet he keeps her in stitches. I would never have laughed at a person who had been waiting for a brug to bloom and then to have it freeze. I wonder what he must have been thinking. Oh yea, I know now, he wasn't.