a standard
White Ecuador
its very very lovely..
How nice,... I hope I can manage to make some of mine into standards about that height.. perfectly beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your pretty pleasures.
Tammie
How do you go about shaping them that way?
MollyD
Molly As it Grows Strip all the young leaves and branches from the trunk leave the top alone i keep a six foot bamboo stake tied to it till it gets biger and it keeps it straight
phicks,
Thank you and can you top them off to keep them at a certain height?
MollyD
yes
Oh good! That will make them easier to work with. Some plants suffer terribly when topped off or you ruin their looks.
MollyD
best way is to just pluck the top of the midle plant but not till you get a Y
from what I've read they bloom after they've formed the Y ? Is that correct?
MollyD
yes they need the Y unless the cutings was takeing from above the Y they two i gave you was takeing below but those two are very fast growes and should bloom this summer or early fall
Molly, I don't know how big you want you Brugs but in our zone they don't have long enough to get unmanageably tall. Mine that grew from cuttings got to be about 6 foot tall. Seedlings won't get that tall in one year here.. well maybe if you take really good care of them :)
And yes they have to "Y" before they will bloom but it has to be a natural "Y"ing. If it "y"s because you pinched the center it doesn't speed up blooming.
Thanks Jazz!
Wonder if the greenhouse will speed things up or will the lack of sunlight keep them slow? 6ft slows pleanty big to me!
MollyD
Depends on the brug. They like warm but not hot. Mainly because they are such water hogs. I think I only fertilized once also.. I didn't find any of mine hard to manage..I loved that they got that large in a year's time. Mine did better in the ground. If you plan to take cuttings in the fall you might as well put them in the ground..they are happier and require less water. I had mine in the GH last spring for a few weeks. they seemed to like it.
Jazz they'd be in with the daylily seedlings so not too hot in there except when the sun shines and raises the temp to 90+ for brief periods. Is it normal to take cuttings and raise those instead of carrying the whole plant over to the next year? this will be my first time with brugs so I'm full of questions.
MollyD
I have done both.. it depends on your motivation and your room. Year before last I dug up and carried (well the DH carried) 15 brugmansia to our basement. They survived the winter of benign neglect and then we hauled them all up the stairs in the spring. I didn't put them back in the ground and they weren't very happy..didn't get much bigger than they had been.
The year before I had started out with cuttings and they all grew to 6 foot and bloomed like gangbusters. This year I took cuttings and put them in a five gallon bucket with a couple inches of water and an air stone and they have been quite happy. lots easier on the back and space-wise. I will put them in pots once it warms up.or else straight into the ground. I think most people do cuttings because it takes up less space and is easier on the back :) And also then you can share :)
Sounds like a good strategy to me Jazz!!! Saves lots of room too :-)
MollyD
That's the best part.. that and not dealing with spider mites all winter
Spider mites! UGH! I was battling ahpids in the greenhouse most of the winter. Managed to kill them all off with a 10% ammonia /water solution and then the spider mites erupted! Have not been able to kill them off but finally got them under control with Bayer Systemic. Now gnats are rearing their ugly little heads in there! I am so ready for spring so I can move a lot of plants out of there!!!
MollyD
I got my gnats under control by using dunks in the water. I have a big bucket with a dunk that is for mosquitoes... I use that water to water the plants and it seems to keep the gnats from being able to survive in the soil. I also finally have my white flies under control. I have tried insecticides and dish soap and water mix with little to no success all winter.. finally bought some murphys oil soap... cheap stuff.. and mixed with water.. sprayed the undersides of all the leaves and the next day... almost no white flies! Yea! Finally!
Tammie
There are too many plants in there for dunking Tammie! Some pots are really big too. I wonder if I could just soak the stuff in water and water it into the pots?? Can't see why that wouldn't work as well as dunking.
What do whiteflies look like? If I've had them I wouldn't have known it!
MollyD
That is what I mean.. my plant watering supply is in a big 30 gallon trash can with a dunk floating on top. I use that to water the plants. It inhibits the gnats in the soil. I read it somewhere and started doing it this winter... got rid of them rather quickly too.
Tammie
Thanks Tammie! I'll look around for that stuff and try it. Can't be worse than all those little critters feeding off the roots! I'm doing the raw potato thing now but that won't conflict with this.
MollyD