You know it's funny. The first time I saw a picture of a brug, I thought, okay someone else can have those. But the more I read about them and saw pictures of the blooms, the more hooked I got. Until I finally just had to cave and get a few cuttings! I've babied them all winter and now can't wait to get my first blooms.
She's about to ....#6 : )
Oh Cat!! You haven't had blooms yet? Ooooooh boy .... you sound like me. I was hooked when mine were twigs. After getting lots of advice from people on here, they have in one year's time gone from being about 36" tall single stems to miniature trees that are presently 9 feet tall and growing. Once you get that first bloom, it's even worse. The smell is incredible. And when those flushes start to come on .... oh boy watch out!! It's invigorating!! One DG member called it ecstacy. The smell is beautiful ... far more fragrant than roses and it carries a good distance in the mornings and evenings. Your neighbors will love them, too! Mine do!
That's what I'm hoping for! :-)
You will get it, Cat! You will get it!
I put 6 big pots across the front of my house, but am thinking I'm going to put them in the ground. Watering is getting bad!!! Gotta get several things out of pots and into the ground so I won't have to do it so much.
Has anyone tried the watersol crystals with brugs?
Cat -
I haven't done the watersol crystals but I can tell you from my experience that Brugs, once established in the ground, don't need daily watering. Mine get it about every other day from my timed sprinkler, but only at about 15 minutes each time. When they are in the ground, they rely more on the resources that are in your soil. Although fertilizing them still is highly recommended for more bloom and fuller, healthier plants!! One more thing - none of your fertilizer will go to waste in the ground.
Of course, I'm in a different zone than you are, but there are other Brug-lovers that have them in the ground in the northern states even who get them back every year. What zone are you in?
I'm in 6. I don't think they would survive if I didn't take them in for winter. And I am fertilizing faithfully. A few are really starting to grow now! :-)
Happ,
Amanda has said it best. Brugs fragrant are outstanding mostly early in the morning and at night....it does so to attract pollinators (moths) to pollinate the flowers for selfpropagation in the wild. But in our controlled environment, we can manipulate them by hand pollination to create new hybrids....I do it for learning/enjoyment purpose.
For those of us that have problem with our potted brugs getting tipped over by strong winds, but need to dig them out of the ground to overwinter them? I highly recommend sink our pot and all in the ground. Comes winter, we just simply dig the pot up and store them indoor.
Kimbob
Cat, no I haven't. But it's one way to save us from having to water the thristy plants too often, especially those of us with busy schedule.
I'm thinking I'm going to try it. I'll put a little way down at the bottom of the hole. The front of the house gets direct sun until around 1 pm, so hopefully I won't have to water quite as much
Lily - I like your idea of burying the pots. That would save them! Only thing is if they really take off and get roots growing out of the pots into the soil - will be hard to dig up! But hey ... nothing worth having is easy, right? And Brugs are DEFINITELY worth having!!
Amanda, you've said it, nothing worth having is easy. lol, I knew of a new gardener, got her feet swifted off the ground when see laid eyes brugs.....but she's the typical 'emmediate gratification' type of gardener, she felt off the wagon of brugmansia lovers pretty soon there after. lol.
Well I learned the hard way over the winter. I am going to choose just a "few" of my favorites to overwinter this year. I went kind of nutty last fall! LOL. Maybe I can share plants or cuttings with newbies this coming fall!
Wow!! Brugs are pretty immdiate gratification though! Well, at least I think so. ;)
They're fast growing, but the TLC required to get them to blooming for us. And to combat the bugs problem in the winter onto the early spring months is a chore. This person thought, puffs! Just get them and mother nature will do the rest for us....lol.
Kim
Aha!! Well, then she must be a daylily fan! I swear, those things grow best with no attention.
Welcome back cat... long time no seee.. and you Amanda!! looks like we have another brug master.. who likes to share info!! And to clear the air on the Hotties..lol we as women are all hotties.. well that is what some of these girls are trying to convince me of..lol.. but WE on this thread are special hotties... to each other anyway!! Soo welcome Hottie Nuttie Sis's!! We are also a newbie brug thread.. trying together with a few "brug masters" to get first blooms etc.
Kimbob.... just how many brugs do you have?? All the pretty pics has me wondering??
OK.. back to playing in the dirt...hehe
I have to admit, after getting so far behind, I just kind of skimmed the # 4 & # 5 threads. So I could have missed some. But I was wondering if we should post pictures of our babies as they grow??? Kind of like we do our kids you know! LOL
cat, I think it's a great idea....
Becky, I've ...quite a few, lol. They wear me out though, I'm going to scale back in the future....maybe, just maybe. lol.
Also, I sowed ton of seeds from my own cross last winter, so I've them coming out of the ying yang....if you know what I mean. LOL, My first seedlings (on brugmansias), I've got to wait to see how they will turn out before I can share with others. I don't think I'll be lucky enough to register any, besides, that's too costly (I assumed). I will stick to my hobby and try to go conservative.
Kimbob
Oooh, god idea, Cat!! And thank you for the explanation and welcome, Beck!! It has been a bit for me, that's for sure!
I'm going to get those pics of my Brugs so you guys can see why I'm elated. ;)
K, these are my NOIDs (possibly CG) from May 2007.
And a few weeks later ..
And earlier this week ... a little over a year later. And after MUCH help from DGers!!!! Whom I love!
Wow. Looks great Amanda! I need to start pictures of mine! So i can follow the growth process
Yes Cat - you should!! It's a good way to trck the growth of your babies. ;)
Golly, you all are moving real fast! Kimbob, congrats on Isabella. My Isabella still hasn't y'd. One day..one day...
Someone mentioned a few posts above getting some brugs from Seedsprout. He's a reliable brug seller. I got quite a few from him last year and they are all doing fine.
But watch who you get from on eBay. A few shoddy ones there.
Play happy!
Yes, heavenscape - you do have to watch who you buy from on eBay!!!! I bought a Brug the other day that came placed in 2 boxes that weren;t even taped together! The postmaster was shocked!
Good morning, Amanda, Kimbob and Cat...
Welcome to our new members. I'm going to have to figure everyone out again. LOL.
We are all hotties to each other, it was a nickname that went with new bruggie lovers, the sisters came later and so on. so now we are the hottie brug loving sisters... though, most of us claim our hotness is either working in the garden or hot flashes. :))
Please jump in any time. If you answer a post two days back, no problem! We still want all the knowledge we can get. And please, please, those of us who are still bloomless, we love to see everybody else's blooms, so we can ooh and aah. Too bad we cannot smell them on the computer. We are all in different stages, from the down on our knees begging it to just grow, to getting our first bud and onto the full brug authorities who are helping us.
Lorraine, I have one in the ground and plan to leave it out. I have seen them in my area come back. I liked Kimbob's explanation very much but I was having trouble figuring out where to overwinter everything I needed to, so decided to leave one out for trial.
Okay, I just finished my shift for the day, so just checking in before naptime. 3AM is a weird shift. TTYL... Peg
Amanda, Wow, That is a lot of growth for one year. I see you have yours in the ground, or well hidden behind other plants. Do they make it Ok through the winters? I am new to brugs. Thanks to JanLynn for my first one Insignis pink. I now have 9 assorted colors and many seedlings, (thanks to all the wonderful ladies on DG), but no blooms yet.
Linda Kay
Linda - yes, they make it perfectly fine through our winters and you would be fine to put yours in the ground. They will lose their leaves when the wind gets harsh and cold, but they will live. I had to trim off about 1 foot of dead tips on both of mine in February, and they've grown back. I need to remove that Philodendron to give my Brugs some room but I just havent gotten around to it and I'm not sure I can do it by myself. But I'm sure they would be fine without it there. :) There are some around here who have Brugs as tall as 18-20 feet. No lie!
Wow, Can they be trimmed to stay smaller bushes, or would that make them not bloom? Sorry for the questions, but this is how we all learn.
Linda Kay
Linda -
I'm sure you could trim them, however their growth rate is pretty rapid so you wouldn't want to trim them too much so that they would bloom for you. But as it's been said - Brugs are VERY forgiving. You could always try that on one and see what happens. If it doesn't work, then you could let it become a tree/large bush form.
Also, if you're looking for something more shrubish, have you thought about Daturas? I don't know much about them and don't have any, but from what I've seen their flowers are in the same shape as Brug flowers yet are pointed upward. And they don't get very tall, and their blooms are smaller than Brug blooms.
I have some Daturas, but they're not as fancy as those you see on here! BTW, I got 4 new white brug cuttings today! along with a red crinim! I'm so tickled! Waiting for the sun to go down, so I can plant the crinim (crinum) ?. I have the brugs in water.
Hello Everyone! Where'd you go? I re-upped for another year on DG, and I had to log in again... Gee, lots of posts on #6, hard to keep up with you hotties. TGIF!!! So happy to hear of all the buds Joyce! Congrats! We NEEED to see more pics... I posted mine on #4 or #5. Beg and Peck! Hi ya Hotties! ;) Amanda I just love the comparison pics! And you were so nervous to do everything right.. Look at you (and your brugs) now! Cat, you can cut any roots that may come out the bottom. I made a drilled nursery pot (big holes all over the sides of the pot) 6 or 7 years ago and put the root ball in it and buried it in the ground. It grew tremendously. I waited until a frost warning in fall and dug it in the dark with a flash light. (most sane people would do it by daylight, but that was back when I didn't have any marbles ;) lol I slid the "sharp shooter" down around the outside of the pot... it was tough, the roots were bigger than a broom handle, HONEST. (I trimmed the leaves off, first) I was able to wrestle it to the ground and trim the smaller roots by whacking with the sharp shooter. Then I set the pot with the brug stems and rootball in a plastic grocery bag. I stored it in the dim cool basement and offered it a cup or so of water every month or so. There was some stem die back, but I still have it, potted. Me and many others will enjoy Peach versi for years to come. I don't have enough muscle these days since I'm an old Hottie, to plant them that way. In winter,I keep mine green and barely growing in my basement for blooms sooner in the Spring.
Edited to correct thread #'s (whaddya expect?:)
This message was edited Jul 11, 2008 8:15 PM
Audrey, I'm sorry, it took me an hour to get that composed.. Way to go on your new plants! More brugs? You got more brugs?
AuntB, so glad you are back with us. Hope your having a good time with all your new found marbles. LOL
I was reading your post, and I can't believe how fast and hardy the plants grow. Looks like I won't keep mine in pots for long. We generally get mild winters here, so I will put them in the ground with some miracle grow, and see what happens.
Linda Kay
Hi Linda Kay, I'm having a wonderful time playing marbles. Too hot to play outside. Some of my brug blooms and a hibiscus bloom fried today. Very hot and heavy humidity.. poor things. They had water, it was just to stifling out. I do want to get some of my "medium" sized plants repotted this weekend they have grown very well since I repotted them not that long ago. I like potting up... they like it, too. I usually throw in some worm castings with the mix when I repot, and water in with vitamins in the water. They settle in real fast and show you how much they like it with even more growth. (gives me something to do while waiting on buds)
Amanda's has good advices, but Linda Kay I just want to add. Brugs usually send out flowers at the terminal ends after the Y-formations (branches), if you prune them off, you're forfeiting your blooms....explore, read more about pruning your brug, when and how much... Some brugs stay compact....other grow very tall....
Also, I need to be careful giving out advices, different zones, different treatments for brugs applies. Zone 9 and above is much different than those of us in lower zones....
In my zone, brugs die down to the base each year and there is some risk of frozen ground that can kill brug's root. So some of us mulch them heavily for precautionary measure.
Bonnie, I didn't know that it could get that hot in your zone, that's how much I know about other zones.
Oh, Peg and Dear Marion, I wanted to give you an idea on encouraging passies bloom. This isn't totally AuntB proven, but I think misting them (when they are out of direct sun), helps induce them to make buds. Not everyday, 2 or 3 times a week. I bought a new Lady Margaret this year, this was her 2nd bloom, she's got 7 or 8 buds coming right behind them... I potted some passies about 5 years ago, I layed a banana peel under their roots and thought that is why they bloomed so well. But that theory was proven wrong since. I still have them and they cover the lattice around the deck every summer.
That is a good point, Kimbob. If I moved to Zone 9, I'd probably burn them up, cause SOME of mine love hot direct sun here, but probably wouldn't like that much in zone 9. I tried to keep a stump in the ground over last winter. I mulched it and put 3 or 4 unopened bags of mulch over that. It didn't work.
Okay, checking in--tired but here!! AuntB misting with water? Mind is growing (and it looks like the picture you posted when it did bloom) like crazy, the trellis is full but alas no buds or blooms. If this rain lets up a little tomorrow I am going to check for buds again. Something about heavy rain, thunder and lightning that has kept me indoors.
Hello Hotties. Haven't been posting but reading every, yes every word, gonna make my babies grow and be healthy ones!!!!