I was looking at my beautiful Frosty Pink. It has grown into a mammoth beauty. There are a couple of long branches (3-4' long) that I would like to trim in spring to give my FP a neater look.
1) When do I trim? After last threat of frost?
2) Can I stick the long stems right into the soil where I want to grow them or should I pot them first for root development?
thanks for your help.
Thinking about spring & brugs
Vossner,in 9A you should be able to root them in the ground.Take off all the leaves so the cutting doesn't lose moisture while it is rooting.
thank you, I will do just that. It is so gorgeous today, so tempting to go on a whacking spree. But I won't--just so tempting with the beautiful weather. Beautiful for whacking, but not beautiful for weeding the monsters that look at me mockingly.
lol . fp is a good grower . my cutting has huge leaves on such a small thing lol
Nery, how much frost do you get in your zone? Have you over wintered your brug in years past outside? My problem here is though it does not get cold enough to freeze them to death, winter is our rainy season and between the cold and the excessive rain, they can rot.
Unless your brug is actively growing, it may have gone dormant and it will be hard to root now. If you are afraid you may lose your mother plant, take a couple of cuttings and bring them in to root. They may. And put a woody one in dirt and keep outside but next to house and keep on the damp but dryer side after the first watering. Cuttings with some hardwood have a better chance. I have luck with these outside ones, the cold keeps them from rotting and they suddenly root at some point between now and spring and leaf out in spring.
Come spring, when you prune, they should root with ease, even the green ones. I always prune mine in second half of March, April or May and if possible root prune them in March thru May also. The earlier I do it the faster they bloom. They recover so fast when their grow juices start flowing. I am getting old though so I am getting slower. LOL. Sometimes so slow it seems they do not ever get done.
What does root pruning do? Do you root prune in pots as well as in the ground?
Hi Yardqueen!
I have so many brugs in 25 gallon pots and I refuse to move up to a bigger pot. Brugs are very weedy in growth and will fill a 25 gallon pot in a season so it is almost solid roots. To keep them in the same size pot, I pull them out and cut the root mass in half. I cut from all sides. I use a root saw. Maybe even more in spring for they rebound so well in spring. I then have room in the pot to add new fresh soil for them to grow in. This also cuts down on the watering for a rootbound brug needs to be watered every day when in growth mode. One just repotted up with so much new soil, only water when getting dry. You do not want to drown it.
At the same time you root prune, you need to prune the canopy. Again the usual rule is you prune it by the same amount as you did the roots. However, in the cool of the spring when the plant is not being stressed by severe heat, I usually can take a bit less off the canopy if I want to keep it fuller and the plant seems to grow roots fast to support the canopy.
Root pruning is done to reduce the root ball size in order to re-pot the plant in the same pot. Root pruning allows you to replace some of the old worn out potting soil with new soil. This is usually done only on plants in large pots. It is done because you don't want to go on to the next larger sized pot. You don't need to do it if you are potting onto a larger pot.
oh, ok. Thank you, Kell and bettydee! I will have some in pots for the 1st time this year so hat is good to know. I have a few that are not even root hardy to 8a so they will be going in pots in the spring so I can put them in the greenhouse in fall.
I know that there are some plants that benefit from root pruning even in the ground, but I had not heard of that for brugs before.
Thanks again,
Carol
hiya ladies. Kell, we rarely see frost. So far we've had some evenings that dip into freezing temps for a few hours and brugs defoliate. But temps rose again to hi 60-70 in days, 40's in evenings and all my brugs are full of new grow. I don't remember losing a brug to cold.
Regardless of mild temps, I wouldn't trim those branches until March. I was just hoping I could simply stick them inground and let them take off. All my brugs are inground except from my wretched white which is potted but awaiting spring planting. I even have a bud in my Joli but I'm sure I'm gonna lose it as temps here are supposed to drop next week.
Hi Nery,
What a difference 1/2 a zone and being closer to the gulf makes. The lowest the temperature has gotten here is 29ºF, but the low lasted all night long. We've had at least one light freeze a week and 2 or 3 colder ones since mid November. I have to run out and cover the 3 Brugs I have in the ground. I have 2 small Jaimes in the ground, but they get covered with burlap and large plastic pots. The other in the ground Brug is too large for this treatment so I made a double burlap sack — hard to get on with 30 mph winds blowing — and am using bubble wrap that has provided some protection except it get blows away sometime during the night. I've tried several ways to keep the bubble wrap on without success. I need wider bubble wrap or a tape that doesn't fail in cold weather. The "Y" is still green and the bottom 24", that have remained wrapped because the top is open, still has green leaves. The rest is toast. I should leave everything off to see how Brugs fare in this climate because once I get all my Brugs in the ground I won't be able to cover them all. I still have your Cleopatra but am afraid to mail it since we haven't had a full week without a freeze. Unless we can figure out how I can get it to you, I may have to wait until March to send it.
Hi Kell, I'm glad to see you posting again. My seeds are in a community pot, but I haven't seen any sprout yet.
Hiya V. Yes, let's wait on the Cleopatra. We still have two monthsof chilly/cold weather. I can certainly wait that long. Wow you have had to do a lot to protect yours brugs. I wonder also if mine get a little extra protection from being protected by other plants. Not a single one of mine stands alone.
This message was edited Jan 3, 2009 11:49 AM
The house sits in the middle of a pasture — no protection what so ever. If I ever get the house my DH has been promising, the house and yard would be protected by 20 acres of woods. That may make a difference.
My F.P. surprised me with this lone bloom in the gh these past few days. ^_^
Chrissy, I read the first part before you got to the actual temperatures and had to laugh. Around here 93ºF is just beginning to get hot. Here at the ranch, the temperatures have hit 100ºF on occasion, but it's cooler than Austin which had a record number of days over 100F, many nearer to 105ºF. Now that's hot! LOL. Las Vegas has had temperatures of 120ºF, but "it's a dry heat."
Veronica, have you tried vet wrap for taping your bubble wrap? It is used to bandage dogs and cats. I think they sell it in pharmacies under another name and it comes in all kinds of colors. That stuff doesn't pull apart, even when wet.
we hit 100° and above more than I care to think about.
Jeanne, thanks for the info. I'll check with the local pharmacies. I ordered poly patch a few days ago. It was expensive, but nothing else worked at low temperatures. If the vet wrap is cheaper, I'll use it on the bubble wrap and save the poly patch for use on the greenhouse.
We get temps of around 105F /110F ...and higher too but it is the hot wind that knocks the blooms around because it is very dry ...bushfire wind ...I have been told by Texan friends that we are very similar in temps ...not as cold in Winter that is all, at least I know our brugs will come through the heat ok thanks to you, I only ever had the two common can't kill with a bulldozer types before last year and last year was the coolest wettest summer on record so Hybrids in heat are new to me.
The vet wrap is commonly known as cohesive flexible bandage. The company ours is from is Co-Flex. It stretches and unstretches.
Does anyone know a reputable dealer to get brug seeds from? I bought some on the internet 4or 5 months ago and now my greenhouse is full of very beautiful blooms...Datura blooms. Very pretty but not what I ordered!
Veronica,
Have you thought about using long reusable zip-ties for bubble wrap containment, say 24" long ones? You can also link the short zip-ties together to make them longer.
Lily_Love and Crissy,
The FP blooms are beautiful. I recently acquired a bucket full of Brug cuttings from a lady who lives in Austin. They are starting to sprout new leaves now. In the batch of cuttings there a couple Frosty Pinks. I now have something to look forward to this coming year.
What is FP's fragrance like?
This message was edited Jan 6, 2009 8:50 AM
Jerry, I'm trying to make bubble wrap bags by taping two or three bubble wrap strips together. I've used double sided greenhouse tape I purchased from Charley's Greenhouse, as well as double sided packaging tape. They both work fine as long as the temperature stays warm, such as in the house where I working on it. Once outside in the cold, the adhesive fails, the strips come apart exposing the Brugs I'm trying to protect.
I got some seeds from seedsprout also. Seem to be what I ordered. They are brugs anyway. Won't know until they grow up and bloom. But there are several DGers who vouch for her. That's why I bought from her.
Hazel2, I've bought most of my seed from SeedSprout, too, but she stopped doing business sometime late last year. I just looked up seedsprout nursery and got this:
http://seedsprout.mybisi.com/
I have bought seed and or plants from:
JT Sessions (aka gone2seed) He sells on the MarketPlace, e-Bay. as well as his own nursery, Country Garden
Liz (aka gordo) on e-Bay and MarketPlace
Gary (aka xeriscape8321) on e-Bay and MarketPlace
Bettydee , I wrapped my outside brugs in a few layers newpaper secured with electrical tape. We have had some really bad freezes ( sounds crazy for here!) but they came through o.k. with a some top damage.
I put the paper wraps on at the first freeze in I think mid Nov and they are still on. The paper gives insulation but also dries quickly so no rot inside.
With the good weather we have had recently they are sprouting again from top and bottom, that is until the next cold front ...
This pic is of the damage.
And now
