Hi there,
One of my big old Charles Grimaldi has floppy skin, does that mean the plant is dead?
He is in the ground.
Thanks, Christie
"floppy skin"
Christie, i think we need a little bit more than that...a pic maybe?
Do you mean the surface of the trunk? Is it rotten?
Oh Christie, is this one that got frosted? I have it on so many of my outside brugs if we are talking about the same probem. The bark can even look saggy. And if you push on it with your finger it just slides off.
Yes, that part is dead, but sometimes you can go down and find some firm spot lower down. If not, hopefully it will come back from the roots. I would cut it all off so a fungus does not get in there and rot the roots too.
Yikes Kell! I've never seen that before!! Then again, my brugs have never seen frost before.......
Well Gary, come on over. I can literally show you about 300 with it. LOL And now we are getting rain so the fungus will start I am sure.
Christie is your yard as devastated as mine? My roses are the only thing that thrived during all this. Thank goodness I have tons of those.
I bet this is what the colder regions of brug growers see this every winter, here it is novel. In the 30 years I have lived here we have never had this much cold and for so long. But oddly my HUGE 25 year old bougainvillea that had no protection will make it with only about 25% dieback and also my 25 + year old HUGE staghorn. It wasn't even touched. Those are my 2 plants I am so attached to, so I cannot be too sad. But I have got to say, the brugs bit the dust. I think those I covered will bounce back but any I didn't are history.
Sadly, all my in ground tibouchinas may be toast too which would be a great loss to me though they will grow fast when I plant new ones. And to my great chagrin, my beloved Distictis 'Rivers' vine looks dead. It always did fine in the few frosts we have had before. I had an orange rose that intertwined with it the last year or so for such a gaudy show of orange and purple, so I am not happy about starting a new vine again. But oh well.......... change is what life is all about.
Yeah... eeww.. I have 23 that are like that.
I dug up a few already. I want the room for seedlings anyway.. I freaked out when the first one I pulled to get it out the skin slid off and I almost landed on my butt. LOL It was so gross.. Degloved the entire trunk. All my brugs outside are like that. I only have new growth on a Rosamond cutting and an unknown seedling that were in pots on the porch.
The great thing about brugs is they come back from the roots. All of ours here freeze to the ground but come back. It take longer to get blooms but they do bloom.
Kell, I would love to see a staghorn that is 25 years old. Do you have a picture? Joan
No, not all brugs come back from the roots. A hand full only. I think there was a thread once quite sometime back, on which brugs were hardy, (came back from frost) and how cold was it for that region, I'll have to look for that thread.
I lost quite a few experimenting onwhether or not they would come back.
I think one would have alot better chance of one coming back if they never cut it back after frost, just left it, and then in spring cut off all dead parts.
But there are many many of them that aren't hardy
It also depends on your zone. too, of course. I have terrible luck getting brugs to come back from the ground...
Yep, Kell, mine looks like yours in the picture...
It was my very favorite boy... Devastating to lose it...
Should I dig it out? It is like that all the way down to the ground.
Christie
My heart goes out to all of you that lost so many plants during the recent cold. Hopefully you will recover quickly and end up with even more spectacular gardens!
It's been unusally cold here as well - highs less than 20F and lows as low as -20F (with windchills much colder than that). I'm hoping that my zone marginal plants in the garden make it through.
Erick
Kell, I'm in zone 8b and my tibouchinas die back to the ground each year and come back. How cold did it get?
Jeri
Christie I would leave your brug in the ground. We have had cold snaps like you are having now (just last year) and ALL of the brugs in the ground came back. They come back every year. Zone 9.
Mine were all in pots, so most likely the roots got frozen too. Most look just like Kell's picture. There's just a couple that have some firm wood near the bottom. I'll give them a chance and see what happens, but most are toast here. I'm so glad my favorites were in the greenhouse. Hope others have good luck.
I really do not have experience with such severe damage. Usually mine can get frost bite on the top but never below the Y. One year, many years ago before I even knew the name brugmansia, I had 2 die to the ground in a frost. One did come back but it was late June at least before I saw the green coming back up and one never did.
The trouble with these are they are a perfect place for bad fungus to flourish. It would be one thing if we still had the cold weather but we now are getting much higher temperatures and the rotting plant material is perfect for bad things to grow in them.
KathyAnn, I am surprised you get any to come back in your zone. Which ones have you found come back for you? That is just great.
Oh Joan, it is quite a sight. It goes all the way around a 4 by 4 post on my back porch. So it goes 360 degrees around. It is about 7 feet long by now for it hits the top and there are fronds almost to the floor now. I still remember the day I bought it all those years ago. I had seen it at a nursery and it was a good size. It cost $50 which to me was a huge amount of money then. I went home and got my husband and begged to get it. He came back with me to see it. He said I could have it. (Boy have things changed, LOL) I was so thrilled. I have never remounted it or anything. We hung the board it was mounted on, on a nail in the 4 by 4. But over time it grew around the post. The only thing I have ever done to it, is toss a few bananas in the top a couple times a year.
If you look above at my picture of the Distictis 'Rivers' vine, you can see part of the staghorn in the background on the left side.
This is an old picture. I really should take a new one and try to get the whole plant in it. I just love this plant.
Just to clarify.. I'm only digging mine out cause I don't want to wait till June for growth.. I have seedlings that will need to be out there VERY soon... so please don't go by my info! If I didn't need the space so desperately I wouldn't touch them.. My neighbor has a 15 foot brug that froze to the ground and came back bigger that next year.
Mine are pink, and I'm afraid I don't know the name. I start seeing the new growth in March when the days start to warm up a bit. Sometimes, we'll get another frost which melts them all or partially back down to the ground. Then sometimes, we get a heavy rain and the sprouted brugs are completely under water for several hours. Each time, I worry, but they always come back bigger and better. We do probably have to wait longer for blooms, though.
I am borderline zone 8b/9a and my brugs are in the 8b part of the yard (lower and colder, in a valley of sorts).
I now have several other varieties, but they are in pots until I can take cuttings and overwinter them (just in case). I also wish there was a list that specified which ones were hardy enough to withstand some freezes.
Kell, that is a truly beautiful plant. I have never seen one that big. Why do you feed it bananas?
HS If you will remind me in March I will tell you which ones come back. It is just to cold now to know for sure. It has not been this cold and for this long in many years so we see for sure. They are heavly mulch and some are trying to come up now.
Joan
there really was no winter here this year we usaly get a few weeks of cold strange wheather. we may pay for it this summer tho it will either be unbarely hot or it may be a cold summer
Kell, that is a LOVELY staghorn!! I have never seen one that large before. Gorgeous.
Jeanette
Thanks. It actually is a lot bigger than that now and it goes all the way around the post like that so it is really huge!!
Joan, bananas are full of potassium and I guess staghorns just love that. You also are supposed to put a banana in the hole before you plant your rose for a fast start. They must love it too as it breaks down.
Paul, we had our cold for the decade. LOL. I hope you have a nice summer. Here spring has come. All the bulbs are out, the magnolias are in full bloom as well as the cherry trees. You can just about smell spring.
Kell,
That is one gorgeous staghorn! I'd heard of giving those bananas, but never had heard that for roses!
Sharon
Absolutely for roses. Potassium I think it is. They thrive on them. Kell, I wonder if tomatoes would be the same. So many things are the same for roses and tomatoes. I always used Epsom Salts on both of them but now I use the ES on everything. So maybe that isn't a good comparison.
Jeanette
Charles Grimaldi is dead.
I couldn't stand the idea of a "maybe" dead plants anymore, so I dug a gigantic hole around him, so see how the roots were doing.
Well, in short; the same as the limbs, mush...
Thanks for your advise, Christie
PS; it was nice trying...
I have had that staghorn for so long. I am so attached to it. I even talk to it and it talks back. LOL Sadly the apricot tree that has been above it and offered a lot of protection from the weather and sun all theses years is about dead. I have been babying it along hoping it will stay to give the staghorn what he needs. I think this year I will have to put up some shade netting over it so it doesn't get sunburned.
Oh too bad Christie. I bet I have some mush ones too. So sad. I do not want to know yet, it would be too sad. I still want some hope. LOL
Shoot, I meant to buy some bananas to plant in my bare root rose holes. I forgot till saw this thread again.
Jeanette, I wish someone would try a banana in the bottom of a tomato hole just for fun and let us know.
LOL, If I remember when I plant my tomatoes Kell I will do one just for fun. Jeanette