I just found this plant being offered on eBay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120186375454&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123
Is anyone familiar with this plant? Is it easy to grow? They claim it is similar to the brug. I think it is beautiful and would love to try it in a pot.
Sherri
Iochroma cyanea
They are great! Once they get old enough to start blooming, they just don't stop.. and the hummers love em! I don't have that color, and mine didn't bloom last year, but now it's a 6' tree and I love it.
Awesome !!!! I have tons of hummingbirds where I live. It will be perfect. If it grows well in my area, I will want one in every color to compliment the brugs and datura's I have.
Sherri
I hated it last year! Just kept getting bigger and stayed greeeen all year.. then this year KAPOWIE.. non stop blooms! It is so fun to watch the hummers feeding from it.. and tons of bees of all shapes and sizes. It doesn't get bugs like the brugs do, or at least I had no problems with it. It gets really floppy as a shrub.. I tried to grow a standard.. it's still floppy, but with aggressive trimming, it's filling out nice!
I have a few Iochromas I find them to be easier to grow than brugs but they dont get as big and look kind of bushy i grew mine from seed and they have bloomed profusly I think they are australis the blue type not sure about the one you are talking about also they are very hungry I cant seem to feed them enough.
Joyce or Ted,
Could you please post a PIC of yours? I have been watching them on eBay as well, just have not taken the plunge yet, Thanks :)Anita
I think you are more lucky than me, I purchased the seeds, only two of them grew, and after three years still no blooms I finnaly threw them out, even the plant did not get very big.
This was the only pic I could find right now.. I don't have a full sized pic yet..
edited to say... I see that is just a pic of the suckers blooming!
This message was edited Nov 21, 2007 6:37 AM
Here is a bigger one
Thank you so much Joyce, Now I know I WANT 1!
I will wait till the bidding frenzzy is over on them though;)Anita
Isnt it just the most beautiful flower. I love the coloring. My favorite is still the brug and my purple swirl datura - but this one really WOW's me.
Sherri
The one for sale is just 4-6 inches not very big, will take a long time to grow.
How do you start lochroma cuttings? I received one, but I'm not sure how to root it-----any advice?? I sure don't want to lose it!!
I have a few of these, the plum beauty, white, red and the royal blue. I love them all! they get really big and do great in the ground, not so good in pots. They also need full sun. They are brug relatives and are prone to the same pests, aphid, scale, whitefly to name a few. Oh, and not to forget the ever popular mealy bug...HA
They tend not to bloom in the pots because no matter how big a pot I put them in, the roots are quick to fill it and they are always thirsty, even with daily waterings. The ones I have in the ground are content with the regular watering I do in my flowerbeds. These get easily 6 foot tall and need support as they get really lanky. I usually put a large tomato cage around them while small and when they get big, which is QUICK, they complete hide it and I am not stuck trying to stake it. Mine freeze to the ground and come back on their own. The royal blue did not come back in the spring and I thought it was a goner, which surprised me since it was the one I had the most years, so I set the pot by the trash and forgot about it and I noticed in June, it started sprouting and had not even been watered since Spring. So these really are tougher then I thought. I notice when I fertilize mine, I do not get blooms. Was kind of surprised by this as they are brug relatives, maybe others have had better success with that. But regardless, I don't think you can go wrong with iochroma. From what I have read, actnistus is supposed to be the old name of iochroma, but I have my doubts about that as the iochroma have long slender tubular flowers about the diameter of a pencil, and the actnistus I have are shorter and have a wider, flaring skirt. Kartuz has a great selection (annies annuals has some too which is where I got a few of mine) but have never bought from them, I just use them as a reference.
Here is my plum beauty which is blooming like crazy right now. Hope I helped. :~)
DONNA!!!!! Fancy meetin you here! So glad you posted this..
That explains why I had to water the one in the pot 3 times a day and it still looks poor!
Mine froze too.. and I thought the only one to survive was the white cuttings.. but I was wrong and now I have white and Purple.. I love em! The purple one is taller than me with both arms raised.. and a nice tree type bushy shape.. LOL
I used Bayer's Tree & Shrub 12 month stuff, a one time soil drench and never had any bugs on mine.... yet.. LOL
Those are so awesome, I am going to start collecting them next year-been trying real hard not to order any till then lol!
I grow some of the brunfelsias and dats of course, now.
Pudgymudpies,
thanks for posting on thier care and growth. I was hoping that maybe ichroma wouldn't need as much pampering as the brugs. Do they get a lot of pests? Do they stand up to hot weather fairly well? btw, your plum beauty is gorgeous!
Daisy.. I just rooted some in soil.. didn't do anything special. I've rooted them in the bubbler like brugs too.. not a real good survival rate with that... Other than that, I'm not much help.
Angel_Tree.. I used Bayer's Tree & Shrub 12 month stuff, a one time soil drench and never had any bugs on mine... Never had to spray it for anything
Yes, it can stand up to the heat and blazing hot sun.. Our "full sun" (me and pudgymudpies) is brutal.. it will cook my brugs.. but the Iochroma in the ground did fine.
Hey Joyce, I just emailed you a book. LOL
angel, I don't pamper my brugs or my iochromas, I think they sense that I don't care and they do make more effort to try to get my attention. I learned a long time ago that the more I pampered a plant, the more trouble it gave me. LOL But hey, that's just my theory.
I notice if there are pests in the area on other stuff, the iochroma will have them too, but I would not say that anything actually STARTS on the iochroma, to where you would consider it a draw. Make sense? Seems like the hotter it is, the happier they are and the sooner and more profusely they bloom. I think you would have great success with them in your zone! You should really check out the kartuz site so you can really drool. LOL
http://www.kartuz.com/c/7RFPJ/Iochroma.html
Donna I just answered you a couple! LOL
So I will take a couple of cuttings and see how they do in Orchid Moss.. I swear by that stuff now!
My blue one still hasn't bloomed. It got to over 5 feet tall with lush green leaves, but not a single bloom! I started it from seed over a year ago. I took a couple of cuttings from it and have one in the greenhouse and the other in the garage. Momma plant is freezing out on the deck.
Thanks for the info ZZ and pudgie mudpies (love that s/n btw :P) ! Glad they can take the heat, my brugs hated it here in the 120's temps this summer.
ZZ, how do you root in orchid moss? I recently read about starting log cuttings of certain orchids in green moss and so I decided to try it with my Hawiian Ti plants.
I took moss and soaked it in water. Then lined a plastic tray with it and laid 'log style' cutting of H. Ti plants on the moss (horizontally) and put the whole mess in a ziplock baggy under lights. I just did this a few weeks ago and now they are full of little roots starting.
I am trying this with brugs now~ It seems to be working great so far for the little green cuttings that want to shrivel and dehydrate.
Little green cuttings will always do that.. Well, most of the time..
I use strips of plastic wrap.. cut the 1 gal ziplock bags into strips, lay it out.. put some Orchid Moss..Lowe's has it (Not green moss) on the plastic strip.. lay the cuttings in, cover with more moss.. then roll it up and tape it.. leave the bottom open for drainage. I have some cuttings that have been like that for over a month, and there are roots everywhere! They are gonna stay in there till Spring too. LOL
I read that you don't take the moss off when you plant them in soil.. just leave it on them so you don't damage the roots.
When you tape it shut, you can write the name of the cuttings on the tape and cover it with another piece of tape just so it doesn't wash off.
Joyce, This is very interesting---thanks for the pictures. Do you think this would work for the lochromas too?
I'm going to try it Daisy... It is time for them to be cut back and I'll see what happens!
I think I will try it on my cutting, too----it looks like a gentle way to coax rooting.