Here is Arborea T, a classic white that has a great vanilla scent in the evening, and my old faithfull pure Yellow Aurea which has a marzipan/almond scent that even drifts into the day.
Currently have them in my cold frame conservatory, battling with a scented indoor jamine that is covered in blooms. The scent when pulling back the doors in the morning is amazing :o , and sets me in a good mood before my journey to work.
This is the start of my Brugmansia thread, as I have near enough 60 plants this year, and hope to share my blooms with you all.
Due to illness and being unable to make enough room under cover, most of mine had to withstand the winter outside, wrapped in fleece. All was well until the 5 weeks of freezing winds in Feb/March and that saw many of them off. However, your aurea seedling has come through in leaps and bounds with nice strong shoots and almost no die-back. It remained in full leaf until March, but was eventually defoliated. I have great hopes for it this year. Strangely, the cold brugs (Gelber etc.) were badly clobbered and are no more, but 'Maya' has survived albeit cut down by nearly half.
Variety wise, I’m aiming to grow as many Aurea and Aurea hybrids as I can mainly, but I can’t ignore the do-ers in my collection that always can be relied on a show, like Charles Grimaldi, Grand Marnier, Sunset,etc . Plus some big old blousy doubles that my wife has grown to love. I quite like the cold species too, and I think I have around 60 plants, and alot of seedlings that I’m really happy to own.
The bulk of the seedlings are pure Aurea’s, collected from Colombia( not by me!) and distributed by a fella from Germany. I am growing out pure pinks, yellows and white, and crosses between them. Either way I should end up owning some beauties that would grace some Botanical centre’s, all in my humble back garden. I’ll have to wait until next year for any flower’s I think, but meanwhile I have some great American Aurea hybrids that should come good.
I’m not sure when I suddenly decided to narrow down and focus on the Aurea species, but I really admire their long lasting blooms, and flowering habit. Not to mention the big twanger’s( peaks/tendrils) that they produce, very dramatic looking blooms.
Because of this overlong drawn out winter, I drew up a planting plan ( I was very bored) and have raised beds on either side to have a Brugmansia alley going down the garden, interspersed with Dahlia’s, and Palms, Cotinus, Colourful Roses and Phormiums. Down the end of the garden will be luminous white Brug’s to cap it off. Plus another area for Brugs that appreciate shade, and the other side it’s south facing aspect. My immediate neighbours expect to have a few their gardens, which is great because I get to see them also. I’ve also convinced my Mum, a cottage garden lover, to grow them too.
Next will be our Chris, oh yes ;) , you will be a fluffy! Your new garden is big enough for all styles.
I’m lucky enough to know some very nice people oversea’s that have given/swapped plants with me, so I have some plants that as far I know that haven’t been grown in this country before. Without realising it I’ve became a Brug snob, hey, don’t we all become plant snob’s eventually?? lol
I hope to share my success with you all this season.
:lol: David, as a reward for your control it has been removed, I know this a thread you like to participate in, so it seems cruel to let it torment you.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing the different plants, brugs could not be more different to my usual plants, fast growing, high water, high feed, over the top flowers. A few years back I did have a couple in pots, and there are a couple kindly donated by Wayne in the garden at work, which re-grow from the roots every year. I am sure I am going to find space for one or two in the new garden, but I'm not sure any will be given space over winter, apart from maybe taking a cutting and starting from that each year.
My Brugmansias are really suffering this year. I have no suitably cool/cold spot to overwinter them, so I keep them indoors and prevent them from growing by keeping them leafless and almost totally dry. That works fine in a normal year, because we usually have the last frost in London in February or early March and I put them out at the first opportunity.
This year, they had to remain indoors until mid-April and they are Not Happy. By the time they got hauled outdoors on 19 April (mid-March last year), they were all infested with mealy-bug. I pruned them back considerably harder than usual - generally I cut them back in Autumn just enough to fit them indoors and then restrict myself to removing die-back in Spring. Getting rid of the mealy-bug trashed such growing points as had appeared, so I took about a half-metre off most of them.
Since they've been outdoors, gradually being plunged in their usual places, it's been very sunny, but cold enough at night to prevent them from growing at all. So it's May and they still haven't even started. If I get any flowers by October, I'll be pleased - last year, I had flushes in late June and July.
Dispite saying I wasn't going to get any more plants this year I came away from my parents with 2 more Langenbuschen thingys all their cuttings took off and sailed through the winter with no problems. So if you want a spare one Wayne I will bring it to Savill plant fair next week.