this part of the year is the worst . i sit an stew and plan and spin my wheels . my thoughts are always on overdrive this time of year because i have so much energy pent up and not many fun things to do in the winter to release it . cleaning house just isnt doing it for me . any way in my planning mode im thinking about my brugs and where to arrange them and all . i have a good property 1/4 shade and the rest full blazing sun i mean blazing .so i have options . so ive been thinking of putting some in the ground( then re rooting in the fall ) and keeping some in pots what i need help with is which to do what with . i know some would benefit from going in the ground but maybe they would be hard to root .ya know ?for instance native habitat took forever to root for me but may not bloom as well in a pot . i saw that in another post. maybe some people with experience with different cultivars can make some suggestions ?
pot or ground, either or
frosty pink
isabella
dreamsikle
peach perfektion
native habitat
dr d
xena
southern belle
peach versi
cupids blush
my short ones are staying in pots .
a dilemma
I have found that it is easier to keep them watered if you plant them in the ground. That's what I did last year & I plan on doing it again this year. No more running around watering pots 4 times a day. If it is too much sun when you first put them out, use a patio umbrella to shade them for a few weeks. I do give them a thorough watering in the am.
Linda
Linda, do they wilt in the sun as easily in the ground as they do in a pot? I want to be done with pots too. They are way too much work in the summer.
Jeanne they wilt in ground too in our weather. At the hottest, even in shade, they wilt during the day and come back with watering that evening.......they do a little better here if you water in the morning to prepare them for the heat of the day.
Do they wilt as bad in the shade?
Yes, sorry Jeanne....In our heat they do. Mine are all planted in areas with very little light in the morning and full shade for the rest of the day. I am referring to the "Dog Days" here, when it is consistantly 100 and over. Most all of mine wilted every single day then, but revived completely, day after day, after a good watering in the evening. The leaves didn't even show damage, if you can believe that.
well I believe it because Cherub would wilt in the pot and then get a drink and act like nothing ever happened. Did your bloom well with so much shade? I'm asking because I have a lot of shaded areas to put them.
thats another thing . if i do put them in the ground do i opt for more shade or sun . it gets pretty hot here too . and humid . my hydrangea wilts in partial shade wo daily watering .
My cherub wilts in the pot when in full sun on 55° days. So I'm thinking shade there too. But I may try for some morning sun and afternoon shade. Or dappled shade in the a.m. and afternoon shade.
i have 3 huge trees , real close to eachother . its like a canopy over the house . then the rest of the yard is sunshine city . so i can put the brugs near the window (so i can smell em )in dappled shade yay.
ya know texas ... i have a cherub and it is growing so well in the window , my peach perfektion is acting like it wants more light . but cherub is amazing me in the house that and frosty pink dont seem to care about the almost full lack of sun . i do have florescent lights in here though
Have you planted them there before? If there is too much shade, you won't get any flowers & you will have pale weak growth. In the lower zone numbers, they need more sun than the ones in FL, CA, etc.
I have better luck inground & less wilting for me because I don't have a pot to dry out & the roots stay cooler. They will wilt any way you grow them & any time the roots cannot supply enough moisture to those big leaves. By watering every am, the ground doesn't get a chance to dry out too much & I don't worry about overwatering. I have been thinking about the pot-in-pot method to make digging them back up a little easier & I put a couple in huge pots in the driveway (can't dig through the blacktop). Obviously everything comes inside for the winter & leaving them in pots makes that way easier but then you have to change the soil & worry over salt building up & ph.
Linda
I didn't know about Brugmansias until June 28th of this year and was given several potted, well rooted cuttings with quite a few leaves. They were standards, and 3-4 ft, tall due to the original, really long cuttings.
It took until about August for mine to Y and bloom, but bloom they did, and well. (I live about 25 miles from TexasGrower so I can compare the area pretty well with her)
All of mine did have sun for several hours of the day, until about 11:00 a.m. Then in pretty much dappled/full shade for the rest of the day. I would agree that they need at least a little morning sun or dappled light to produce well.
maybe ill do pots this year and experiment with where is best , since this is my first year
I was thinking they wouldn't do well without at least a few hours of sun, whether it be a full three or four in the a.m. or split up as the sun moves across the tops of the trees. I was told by someone that Pink Beauty and Peach Versi can handle the full afternoon sun. Does anyone have experience with that? I plan to try and keep mine as standards and closer to the house so I don't have to drag a hose all over the acre of land.
I am trying to get away from pots because they are so much work in the summer. If something happens to me, like last summer, they are at the mercy of my family, and believe me, they don't love them like I do. So I want only about eight pots this year.
I am having to rethink my whole planting scheme. Yeesh. I have lots of trees in the front and a lot of sun in the back. Hmmmmmm
i have some good morning sun spots . i can put peach versi in the back garden if it can take full sun . i like that .
Jeanne, when you see someone mention their Brugs are in full sun, look at where they live and at the humidity there. One thing I discovered about gardening in Texas — some plants that grow well in sunlight elsewhere may need some mid-day shade or filtered shade here. Humidity is also a factor. In areas with high humidity, Brugs will be able to take a bit more sunlight because the transpiration rate is not as high. In areas with low humidity, I would err on the safer side and go with morning sunlight and bright shade or filtered sunlight the rest of the day.
Iris, questions you may not have considered. What kind of trees do you have? Will they handle the extra water? Extra fertilizer? Are they shallow rooted? How do they handle having their roots disturbed? It would be a shame to lose the trees if planting water hogs beneath them endangers them. A win/win situation would be to concentrate the Brugs toward the outer eastern perimeter of the trees' canopy.One last thing to consider: In your zone, Brugs are not root safe during winter. You would have to several cuttings of all your in-ground Brugs.
i was thinking about the tree line . these trees are like 100 yrs old i doubt any thing would bother them . one is a pecan tree . the other is a maple and an acorn tree ( not sure what tree makes acorns lol)
in my original post i was asking which brugs in that list would be better suited in a pot because id have to re root standards every fall .
what was concerning me was , for example native habitat , it took forever to root . then i read some one say that it blooms better in ground , so im like do i risk putting it in ground and not being able re root it for huge flushes . i guess my answer to that is yes
Old trees are just as vulnerable as young trees, sometimes even more so if the trees are not in the best of health. Most can handle a bit of root damage, but it does have an impact on the tree. The pecan tree would be able to handle the extra water, but it depends on the soil type because even they don't do well in overly wet clay soil. Maples, I believe, are very shallow rooted, some more than others. The other tree is an oak, but be aware than a few oaks don't like any root disturbance. Post oaks are notorious for dropping dead if disturbed. I suggest you find out what kind of maple and oak you have.
Veronica, the person I asked about full sun was in Fl. I know it gets hot and humid there. I used to live there. We can get humid too but not as humid as Fl. They obviously don't get the 100° temps we get either. It just makes it harder to find a place that's just right for them. Even the nursery where I bought the Cherub said full sun. They shouldn't say that if the plant can't take it. Say sun to partial shade. That would be more accurate. But then I guess I'm to blame because I didn't do my homework on brugs before I bought one. It has taken me three months here to learn what I have learned so far.
Well, I just have to suck it up and put the darn things in part shade which means further from the house which means carting water to it everyday while it settles in. Whine , whine, whine. Don't you hate it when people whine? sniffle.........sup,sup.......
My home provides protection from the afternoon sun.Do you have any room near your home on the East Facing side if not a 6ft fence or frame going up to six foot covered with shade cloth on the side that receives the afternoon sun ...we had 107F yesterday and the brugs are a bit grilled but will be ok. You will need to water twice a day in those conditions.
Sounds to me like some of these Brugs in certain situations are ideal candidates for drip irrigation systems on a timer.
Anybody doing this or heard of it being done?
Jerry
I don't really have any place on the east side of the house. That is the front yard and it already has it's landscaping in place. There is space down in the yard but I hate to do that because it means toting water to the plant or dragging two hoses to reach it. I might be able to plant two on the east side off of the parking pad. Down in the yard means exposed to high winds when the thunderstorms come through. We can and often do, get straight line winds of 60mph. I've thought about staking them. The south and west sides of the house get afternoon sun even with all the trees. I may just have to put the majority of them up in the back yard where the shade kicks in around 2pm in the dead of summer.
The pic below is the front of our house taken from about halfway down the yard. I have my roses, hummingbird vines, cannas, azaleas in beds. Anything planted on the SE corner will get direct afternoon sun. Anything planted on the NE corner will get mottled and partial sun. I'm so glad I have two to three more months to work it out.
Yes work it out and remember the sun changes ...I have a similar problem I get fierce winds off the mountains and the very hot afternoon sun where I am about to start a large brug garden ...it will be more exposed than where I grow them now ...I will be sheltering everywhere with fast growing creepers and a huge existing wisteria which runs across the front left fence ...I guess we will both find out won't we? very best of luck to you ...here is my wisteria it's over 6ft high so it's a good start. Bougainvillia are good too ...foliage cuts the wind down very well.
Jeanne, you could place a flower bed anywhere by building a pergola with some shadecloth over the bed. By placing the Brugs down the length of the pergola, the shadecloth would protect them during the hottest part of the day. Most Brug will take late afternoon sun. You'd get better protection from the sun by orienting the pergola along an east-west axis.
I have three wisteria that are supported by a 28 ft long trellis. The trellis is 8 ft tall with the wisteria riding above that. But again, they are down by the street in the front yard, 3/4 of an acre away. I might look into seeing if I could place a brug or too down there. The bed in front of the wisteria has crapes, peonies, clematis, roses, lantana, spirea, chinese fringe, and zinnias in the summer. I know it sounds like a lot but it works. In the spring there is iris and daffs down there too. I think I need to balance out the front by planting some things on the opposite side. I could raise the canopy of the trees to let more light in. I have bougainvillia but they are potted. I think they's die back in my zone. I don't know for sure, but I'd hate to lose them. They remind me of my time in Florida.
Veronica, a pergola sounds like a beautiful solution. But...... there's always a but.......getting my husband to build one is another thing. I'm still waiting on the deck in the backyard. You all are giving great ideas and I will be in the yard trying to incorporate them into my plan.
