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Wonderful news!

So, has everyone received their box now?

I received mine this morning. : ) Thank you very much. : )
~Lucy

Hi guys! Trying to type with my chilly fingers up here in Indiana!
Glad everybody's getting their brugs, and so happy to see your postman brought yours today Lucille! I was hoping I'd see a stray seed pod somewhere up here, but there's just snow!
My DH is on plant patrol, and even planted several plants that arrived in the mail yesterday! I set out 5 pots and soil for him and talked to him last night. The plants had arrived and he planted them all up. One little glitch- they sent a freebie, so he even got that one taken care of!
We're off to do a little sledding....Brrrrrrrr
Cathy

Cool Cathy, having fun with the snow. Lu, I'm so glad for you, also happy to hear that the cuttings made it through transit with the changes in the weather. Deborah, Chris, Lucy, have fun.
Catch up with everyone later.
Kim

Yahoo and thank you everyone,I am happy,happy tonight☺

Cathy,not even one seed pod☻I don't believe it♂☻The world must be coming to an end if you are not finding one little stray seed pod blowing around in the snow.Your DH must be a pretty special guy to do all that panting while you are away and sledding besides. I am showing this thread to my DH and see if some of your DH attitude will rub off on him☺

Have a great weekend everyone☺

UHOH☻Vixen and Tiara are not looking so good this afternoon. The cutting is turning soft from the top to halfway down both. The rest are still looking good.Do you recommend I cut the part that is soft off or wait and see if it firms up again? I hate to lose any after they survived the cold to get all the way here.

I wish I had more experience with Brugs, but till I gain it,I will have to ask for help with them.
Thanks,LU

Lucille cut the bottom part that is mushy and get it potted up in some soil about 3" deep in narrow container

Lucille,
Have you tried to soak the whole cutting in room-temp. water? If you haven't. I'll try that next and wait to see if the cutting rehydrate. During the summer months, I just dunk the whole branch into the lake, let them rehydrate for a day or two, then I fish them out and put them in 3-4 inches of water to root. It worked for me.
Kim

This message was edited Dec 8, 2007 12:03 PM

♥Thanks Kim,I will go try it ight now. I saved rain water at room temp just for the Brugs so I have friendly waters for them to enjoy♥

YOu are blessed to have a lake, I can only dream about one and enjoy my man-made pond☺

Thanks Lucille,
Here I've found a pic. of the soaked to rehydrate brug. LOL, I've tied into a post. And when I went back out to hunt for it, the string has broke loose, I thought my salvated brug was a goner. Luckily the wind current was in my favor. I foun the brug swimming ashore in a few yards away. lol.

Lucille I don't recommend you trying to water root in winter unless it is a thick woody stalk. Do not cut the top just let it wither but do cut the mush bottom off and pot it in soil

Here is another tip; I've found that green-tip brugs are very tempermental to take root. I had a Charles Gimaldi that was knocked over by the wind this summer. It kept wilting over (getting dehydrated faster than it can soak up water to root). So I created an artificial dome over the cutting. Mist the little dome (from the inside, it's nothing more but a sandwich plastic bag) once or twice/day to create more humidity. By jorge! That worked too, now I've that little brug sitting in my gh waiting for one of my buddies who lives in La. to give it a good home. :-)

Donna, for the green-tip cuttings, you would reccommend soil-base rooting? I'm willing to give it a try. So far all mine are looking good in water.
Kim

Thank you Kim and Donna. I am going to use both ways as an experiment. I'm going to put one of these in dirt and leave one in the soak. This is a pick of both the troubled ones and one is going in dirt today just to test what happens.

The other Brugs are rooting in water Donna and they look really healthy. Two Brugs that were sent by other members a couple of weeks ago are rooting in water,but I did have to cut a mushy part off one of them as your instructions said to. I am going to pot those in soil in the next couple of days.

Your Brug,swimming to shore to be rescued by you Kim. I hope that Brug has a place of honor on your property☺

Lucille, I potted the branch up and it did finally bloomed for me this late in Oct. The parent plant was stressed due to the harsh summer we had, it didn't bloom this year. This is a NOID pink, which I've nicked named it "Triple B's" for "Big, Bold, and Beautiful" brug.

KIM,OH what a glorious Brug it is☺ That is a good name for that beauty☺☺☺

if they are doing fine in water leave them. If they start getting mushy pot them up

I'll leave mine in water. :-)
Thanks Lu. Keep us posted on your progress. Later.
Kim

Hi all, back from cold Indiana and did a night-time watering and checking on all my plant babies. The brugs look really good, I can see new sprouts popping out, yay! DH gets a big gold star. Temps were about 10 degrees above normal while I was gone, hot and dry.
Kim that Triple B is quite lovely, does it smell as good as it looks?
Cathy

Yes, Cathy, it does. Only at night. I overwinter this one indoor this year for the first time. When I finally got more than 3 blooms at once, it practically perfumed up the whole basement. (Only at night, for they released the scent to attract pollinators such as moths, ect).

The wilty Brugs are rehydrated and are looking good again. They don't have roots yet but they turned bright green and look very health this morning. It was completely submersing them in water that did the trick. Yahoo! I hope all my Brugs survive for spring planting☺

Congrats! Lu, Yippieeeeee!!!
Some of mine green-tip DD and Vixin show some deteriorating at the bottom while sitting in water, I'm going to have to cut those off and painted with some rooting hormon pot 'em up, probably with added humidity dome to see if I can nudge them to root in potting medium. Others I'll keep them in water as it.
Kim

Welcome home Cathy!

Hey Kim! I am glad you mentioned the rooting compound. I have some so I will use it as soon as I get brave enough to plant the Wondersome Brugs in soil. I hate to disturb them for now,they are looking sooooo good. I feel like a proud parent♂☺☺☺
LU

It's a delightful experience indeed. Enjoy Lu, and stay warm. We're having an Indian-summer down here. It's hot! Imagine, we've to turn our air-condition on during the days. Tsk, tsk, I hope my spring bulbs won't get confuse and sprout up early only to be nipped off by frost later on. GRRRRRRR!
Kim

Thanks Gals!
Kim, I can only imagine what a heavenly smelling basement you must have!
Lucille, I'm so glad your bruggies are doing well.

We are having a very hot December, supposed to have a high of 86 today! I did an early morning check, before the sun was up, on all my plant babies and everything looks pretty good. I'll go home at lunch and do another inspection, looks like all the bruggies are happy, yay!

Cathy

I'm sending you two something to cool off with. This is me taking a pic, standing on the ice in the middle of my pond. My fish were mighty glad to see me earlier this week☺

Yikes! Reminds me of Indiana, they had nasty ice storms north of where my DS lives, luckily there were lots of ice covered trees, but the roads were OK. Your fish are so cute!
I'm glad to be back in the humidity, my skin is SO much happier now.
Cathy

Oh Boy! Ahhhhh, cooling down. It's 86 degrees outside here. I can't imagine it' on the 90's something where you're Cath. What a wierd weather! But then again, that's typical here in the South. lol
Kim

Hello everyone;
I've good news and bad on my cuttings. The bad news is one of my 2 DD brug became waterlodged and all mushy up. The good news is MM and FEM both sprouted roots about an inch long.
My second DD is looking a little bit dehydrated. So I misted up and put it in a humidity dome. The rest of the cuttings either has formed lenticles, or still looking good otherwise. Will let ya'll updated with the progress. I'm excited about those that are rooted. I'm going to pot them up this evening. Yooohoooo.
Kim

sometimes they just don't like to be water rooted in winter. Glad the others are doing well for you

Thank you, Donna, the others looking promising. I'm going to give them my best shot on nuturing them. I'm graceful of your generosity.
Kim

Hi guys - an update on what I did with very promising results so far. I cut plastic water bottles in half and drilled a hole in the bottom of each one. Put some good potting soil in there with a cutting in each one. Put them each in a styrofoam bowl and watered them very well. When the water came out of the drain hole, into the bowl, I drained that water. Placed them in a sunny windowsill. I've only lightly watered once since then and all are looking very well....most with new growth already. Two cuttings look a 'little shrively' at the top but they're not mushy. When I see a good root system growing, I'll repot into pots just a little larger.

Kristi sounds like you are doing it just right. WTG!!!

Thank you, Donna! I had mixed results using the bubbler last year with cuttings someone had sent. They were incredibly healthy cuttings but many got lost to 'mushiness' and I had never tried growing them before so I wasn't really aware of what to do. Out of about 20 cuttings, 5 made it from the bubbler. 2 that I kept are blooming right now and they are Dr. Seuss (I think....I wasn't not a good labeling Mom). I gave 'Whiskers' away to a friend that really deserved it and I gave 2 more to my mother and can't remember their names. So far, as far as I know, they are all well and happy. Long story short...the bubbler didn't do all that well for me. It was about a 25% success. That's why I opted for the soil method this go around. I've had a lot of really good luck rooting various plants, perennials, annuals, vines, roses, etc....using good soil and root hormone. I did not use root hormone on the brugs and they seem to being 'doing their thang' without it. Some plants, I wouldn't try rooting without, especially the vines.

I have to say that I purchased an orange, 1 gallon, no name brug in April. Planted it on the south side of my house in a fairly protected spot (it's in a groove in the house with windows so it has wind protection). That baby is about 8' tall now and has been producing flowers like crazy! I haven't watered it, I haven't fertilized it, I have ignored it. I didn't even amend the soil when I planted it. The only real enemy I have is my yard guys and their weed whackers. We are very hard red clay here but I have learned that it's best to get a plant used to the natural soil. I only put in HGC garden variety soil in the ground before I planted it and let it's roots adjust to what we have here. Ironically, we had record amounts of rain here from May to August and then experienced a bit of a drought. I thought I was going to lose everything. In comparison, the other brugs that aren't planted near the house but against a fence, took a beating a few weeks ago when we dipped into the low 30's. They're still producing flowers but the leaves were freeze burned. What that tells me is, I am going to plant all brugs against the house for added protection in the winter. If they are stand alone in my yard, they receive no protection.

Gee Wizz Kim and things were going so well too! it sounds like the other Baby Brugs are going to make it,thank goodness!

Kristi and Donna, You are scaring me on the water method,so today I am going to pot all of mine in soil and use rooting compound as well. I will be a sad cookie if I lose any☻
LU

I got several cuttings from Donna awhile back and they are still in water. I have plans to pot them up this weekend. None are mushy and all have roots. I am using Spring or Distilled water, not tap water. I wonder if that might have something to do with it. They are also out on my screened porch. It's warm here, so that might be another factor.

Here's a close-up of the roots.

Wow, Becky, those look really good! I potted mine up in a light potting soil with extra perlite, and have them in a bright location outside. There are a couple of teeny tiny shoots, so I'm hoping they'll all take hold.
Fingers crossed for all the bruggy babies...

Kristi,
Thanks for the tips, I rigged up a bubler - system late this summer for the first time trying to root some plants over Fall-winter. Thus far 2 brugs cutting did well, most vines like you said aren't doing much there. Hummm, I atributed that to the type of cuttings that we have, and the season that is applicable for each type of cuttings. Basically I think, warmth, humidity, and light all are essential for rootings our plants.
I've shared some of my NOID brug cuttings with fellow friends and gardener locally, one has great success with potting culture, but she reported that brug stays compact (in size) but bloomed it did for her perfusely from spring to Fall this growing year. Her hubby made her a big pot with wheels on them for ease of rolling the plant around. And she's such a happy camper having received my cutting last fall. :-) (The above pink brug was the stock plant that I usually share with friends and neighbors who enjoy raising them at home).
I'm going to pot mine up ASAP and will keep my fingers crossed. Thank you, once again to you and Donna for being such wonderful sharing and caring DG's family.
Kim

Becky I think it is because you started yours a month or so before they were wanting to go dormant. These cuttings everyone got from me had already been through a couple of nights of upper 30's which was telling them to start going dormant. That is why I don't recommend water rooting in winter unless it is a big fat thick woody cutting