Brugmansias in August......promise of things to come.

I thought that I would start a new thread with my Sanguinea...
Just bought it for $12, yippee....
It has lots of buds and new growth.....the ticket said 2 mtrs, they obviously haven't seen the one in the gardens...lol

It looks very much like the one from the Geelong Gardens, so if my cutting doesn't grow..no probs.
Now all the growers who want to try the Sphaeros have a Sanguinea, so we should be able to produce some interesting colours with our US seeds and our Sangs......

Looking forward to all the hybridizing to come.....

We came from here.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1199920/

Well done, Dianne: you must be thrilled! (And it has a flower, what a bonus.)
Did you buy it from a local nursery?

Scratched my head over the reference to Sphaeros, but a search found Alan's home page at http://hurstwoodbrugmansia.blogspot.com/2011/06/he-are-couple-of-new-sphaeros-i-have.html and the reference to Sphaerocarpium, 'which includes Sanguinea, Arborea, Flava and Vulcanicola'. Obviously I haven't been paying attention! Promise of many exciting things to come in the colder gardens here ...

PS Hurry up and get some pollen onto that bloom!

This message was edited Aug 11, 2011 1:29 PM

Dianne, thats a lovely sang. I just wish nurseries around here would stock one or two for me to buy. I have only ever seen a couple of brugs for sale last eyar. They were so awful looking, I wonder if anyone bought one. No sangs though.
Good luck with it.
Cestrum, one should not look at Alans site. Its too much of "I want one of those "

Jean.

LOL, sorry cestrum, I like the way Alan uses "Sphaeros"...better than "cold group" to me...and he is the expert.

I just walked in to this little nursery that I go to in Portarlington and there it was....I couldn't buy one for love nor money in any of the other nurseries....
My cutting will probably grow now...that's usually the way....

It's the most interesting nursery, I was living in Indented Heads when he opened and it's just a bare block about house sized, right behind the shops in Port....you might know Portarlington?.....
Jam packed with all sorts of wonders....he buys from local people who bring in plants for him as well as pro growers...he has a shed and high wire all around the property...He isn't there all the time so this morning he had a young girl taking the money..he does landscaping as well...
He is on the lookout for a Cantua buxifolia bicolour for me.....he sold me the pink last year and it's just about to flower.

Re the pollen onto the Sanguinea....the *&(&^%%#$%& snails are back in force here..there was a big snail up the corolla tube eating the anthers.....

Thanks Jean, you have cuttings too, don't you.....If they fail and mine grows you can have it.....
Dianne.

Excellent buy Dianne. I can just hear Brian cutting crook about ours. About 12" high measely looking plants and not a flower or bud in sight at the time. Is your Arborea flowering? Colleen

Jean and Dianne: you live in colder climes, so what is the problem with growing sanguineas? I know from my experience in sowing them in Brisbane during autumn that they germinate readily from seed (in that climate at that time of year), so I assume germination isn't a problem (esp. in your climates). Is slow/sickly growth after germination the problem ie failing to thrive?
PS If I were that grower, I would have *electrified* wire around my property LOL

cestrum, I don't know anyone who has grown them from seed...except Lucas.
I've just haven't had the seed, probably Jean and Colleen are the same.
We know that they grow ok, they are in lots of gardens around here.
I tried to grow one from a cutting about a year ago...no go.
Lucas has since told us that he strikes them easily in Winter, so we are trying that..
Mine is still ok after about 6 weeks...

Most of the population of Port is too old to get over the fence.....the younger ones go swimming.

Colleen, I don't have an Arborea....I will plant some seeds from Chrissie this Spring.



This message was edited Aug 11, 2011 4:03 PM

Isn't that strange? I couldn't get a sanguinea to grow from a few (purloined) cuttings from (ahem, let's just call it a public park in Melb) but the seeds germinated like grass! (They came from a NZ grower and they definitely were fresh because she told me that she had been waiting 6 months for them to germinate! Alas, I no longer have her details.)

Perhaps you had old seeds? Chrissy's arborea seeds germinated readily for me (but they've been slow to grow and some have died) but some I'd bought from an Australian seller failed to germinate: 100% failure rate. (And they were sown in several pots and kept in different parts of the garden.) I wonder if you have the same problem?

... No need for an electric fence then ;-)

This message was edited Aug 11, 2011 3:03 PM

cestrum, I had to correct my last post to read that I have never had any Sanguinea seed..
My Arborea seed will be my first attempt to grow those seeds...fingers crossed...
Jean has some growing too....

Cute plant Dianne, nice buy. :)

Thanks Lucas,
I just planted the Arborea seeds, Chrissie.....
Counting down....

It's a shame Lucas doesn't have any spare sanguinea seeds, given that they've germinated like weeds in his backyard.
I know I have (old) photos of my old sanguinea seedlings but my new operating system can't find them ... This is what happens when MS thinks it knows what you want to do and screws up a perfectly working function (such as search)! God it's frustrating--I KNOW they're there!!

Meanwhile, here's a new photo of one of my Old Apricot x Fernando seedlings. As it was growing like a hanging plant, I decided to plant it in a hanging basket :-) (Only because I have another healthy seedling of this cross anyway.)

Here are two more of the Fernando crosses: Old Apricot at left, Musketeer at right. Look at the difference in leaf colour, despite them being grown in the same greenhouse with the same light levels. These too had a trailing habit developed in the low-light of another greenhouse, so I've cut them back and planted those trailers as cuttings. Not that I need any clones of these two, but I couldn't just throw them away :-)

How are others going with their Fernando-cross seedlings?

Cestrum Lucas did have seeds to spare and shared them with all who asked for them. Colleen

Good stuff ... but what's happened to the seedlings?
I mean, how have they germinated?

Oh no Dianne, did you forgo the chance to grow from (lovely fresh) seed?

This message was edited Aug 11, 2011 5:19 PM

I meant pre Lucas cestrum, when I said that we had never had sang seeds before.
I didn't ask for any seeds but as far as I know everyone's seeds are doing well.


In relation to Fernando's seeds.....mine are about 15cm high and growing ok, but very yellow....like their parent, I don't think that they have adjusted to the cold..
I have 3....2 with Musketeer and 1 with OA......they were doing ok till a snail ate the top of one and the cold hit them.
Fernando had buds just before Winter but it was too late...
He is in the ground now so we will see how he goes....

This message was edited Aug 11, 2011 6:41 PM

Yes, foolish me.
But I didn't think that I would be growing the Sphaeros at all,
Then I got hooked by the crosses that Alan has made.....

Dianne my seeds of the sang haven't germinated as yet. I only planted 4 as I have so much else going on and because they are so fresh I thought that they will be good til March April next year and I'll get them in early. I still have 9 vulsas growing. 1 Knightii X has come through but no sight of the rest as yet. Colleen

Colleen, I think that you mentioned you weren't going to plant many.....
So many posts so poor a memory....
I am thrilled that your Vulsas are growing so well, I wonder how long they will take to flower?
Dianne.

I got 4 more lovely plants,Culebra, peach and pink, Sacred Sunset, plants to add to the collection, got to start some where. only got them today.

•*¨*•♫♪ღ░H░A░P░P░Y░ღ░B░I░R░T░H​░D░A░Y░ ღ♪♫•*¨*•
Happy Birthday To You♪♫•*¨*•.♥.•*¨*•♫♪Happy Birthday To You♪♫•*¨
*•.♥.•*¨*•♫♪Happy Birthday,♪♫•*¨*•.♥.•*¨•*¨*•♫♪ღ​ღ♪♫•*¨*•
Happy Birthday To You♪♫•*¨*•.♥.•*¨*•♫♪and many more♪♫•*¨*•
.♥.•¨*•♫♪Have a great day :O)♪♫•*¨*•.♥.•*¨...Have a wonderful Day Wayne ^_^

I have 6 little sangs now in the mini greenhouse. The cuttings form Lucas are looking great too. Not a lot of growth but still nice and green My arboreas are both looking well and are around 3'high. I am going to put one in the ground and leave the other one in a pot.
today will be moving day for some of the brugs. I am intending to put some in the ground while the smaller ones will stay in pots.
I had to move 3 yesterday so I could get the orchids and their bench out.
I had to drag & tug as there were roots in the ground. Alphonse is getting buds again. He certainly a spindly grower but flowers well.
I need to put him against the trellis on the epi house. I will train his spindly branches as an espalier.
BB is going to be fun to move with all those very large branches and what must be lots of roots in the ground. .
Cestrum, I have 3 seedlings from seed Chrissy sent me when she had the seed store going . . One is a Musketeer x Fernando . another is Domain x Bucks Fizz and one is marked as yours, Knightii x OA.
They are growing slowly and one is very yellow too. Should pick up now we have had some sun.
Jean.

Happy Birthday Wayne....we miss you.

Gena, you will have a forest soon......lol
Don't forget to feed them up, they are very hungry plants.

Come over to the tearoom thread and tell us about Cairns.

Dianne.

If I could grow sanguineas, I would have taken up Lucas's offer of seeds for sure! As it is, my arboreas are not crash hot. Some I lost as seedlings and the one I planted out in autumn has died. The healthiest one is in a pot and about a foot high, so your three-foot arboreas sound really good, Jean. (I'll persevere with my arborea seedlings but, if they all die, I won't replace them--there are too many other brugs that grow well here.)

I wonder if the Old Apricot x Fernando crosses will all have single apricot flowers like the pod parent? It might be only the second-generation of this cross that produces something really different (or more like the pollen donor.) OA seems to exert such a dominant--you could say domineering!--influence as a pod parent ...

Yes, happy birthday Wayne, if you have time to drop by :-)

Here's my other Musketeer x Fernando, except this is a cutting taken from the seedling in April. (It was the one that sent out aerial roots where the stem touched the side of the mini-greenhouse.) I think I'll pot this up and place it in the greenhouse outside. It's still too cold at night to plant things out in the ground--only 2 degrees last night--but the plants know that spring is just around the corner and seem to be revving up for growth.

Waiting for the nurse this morning ...lovely to see the seedlings, back afterwards. ^_^

Jean, here are your seedlings today: 4 germinated, 3 sprouting, 3 to come.
All looking healthy!

Here's the one precious seedpod on my Peanut x Ruffles and Flourishes seedling.
It's a big one--hope the seeds are viable--crossed with Big Floppy Apricot, so you'd expect larger flowers ... except that brugs are contrary this way, so who knows!

Here are the seedpods on my other double pink, Phanomenal x Superspot
In contrast, this brug is incredibly fertile: I counted 17 pods! Assuming some of them don't make it to maturity and some seeds aren't viable, it's still likely that there will be *plenty* of seeds, probably more than all of us (who are interested in growing it) could grow ...

Chrissy, this one might interest you: the sole seedpod on your cross of Old Apricot x Butterbomb. It's been open pollinated (or pollinated by me and not labelled). Chances are that the pollen donor is Big Floppy Apricot, but it's also growing right near the double pink above, so who knows ...

Here's another of Volker's seeds from Mya--it's Yd at least once! The beast (it's a strong grower) is bursting to start setting buds if only the winter nights would stop dropping so low! (It would have flowered over autumn but for this fact.)
I can't wait--it had better not be white LOL

This message was edited Aug 12, 2011 10:29 AM

cestrum, that Phanomel x Superspot surely is a beauty for breeding, were the pods open pollinated?
Or have you been responsible for it's condition.
I must say that I hope that we don't get whites in great numbers...I would love a coloured one of any description.....
Jean's seeds are certainly fertile, can't wait to plant them....look at your babies Jean..it must be the country air, that they were bred in..lol
I'm glad that your Sang seeds are doing well....my cutting has just started to collapse...6 weeks.
Maybe next year, though I don't need one now, do I...

I will wait to take a pic of my Fernando seedlings, they look too terrible....one thing though, the OA x Fernando's have very strong trunks, which is a good sign....has anyone else noticed that?
Probably OA influence...I wouldn't class my Fernando as a strong grower...the Musketeer x Fernando
is a normal looking seedling...

My OA x (Buck's Fizz or Bruce's Pink) pod is big and green and still there....my first pod..there are 2 tiny ones that are still there too...
Dianne.

Dianne, stop staring at that pod. You will frighten it.
I hope yours are quicker than mine to ripen .
I am so pleased at how fertile they are for you. and Cestrum. Mine are still not up. Lazy little b**s.
I hope they do eventually germinate here. Be funny if I get none and sent all the goodies away.
Always try again anyway. I still have two small pods on FP from GHA and Colin noid. .
I am waiting on the new flush on GHA so I can try some of the pollen from BGI. I may wait awhile until it gets a lot warmer though.
Jean.

Most of those 17 pods have labels, including about 3 each of Aztec Gold and Bucks Fizz. (As these both have suaveolens genes, I can keep hoping for an orange somewhere ... one can hope!) I harvested the first pod in April and found there were only 12 viable seeds inside the pod. It was open pollinated so I'm hoping that the pods in this batch--most of which were cross-pollinated by me--will have a higher % of viable seeds. Anyway, there should be plenty of seeds.

At this stage, I'm in greater danger of having an apricot garden than a white one! Which isn't too bad because where there's apricot there might be orange lurking too LOL

No, you don't need any more sanguineas Dianne, but you do *want* one! I'm guessing you'll snap up the chance to get more seeds if they become available down the track :-)

OA x Fernando does seem to have a sturdy stem, but Musketeer x Fernando doesn't look like a weakling either. So I can't really tell but wouldn't be surprised given how tough OA is.

Funny thing is that last year I had a lot of knightii crosses. This year it's the Phanomenal x Superspot crosses. Wonder what it will be next year ...?

Jean, I doubt that I'll sow every packet of your seeds so if you (or anyone else) runs out, you can get more from me.

Chrissy, one of those 17 seedpods, although still very small and I might be jinxing it by mentioning it but I know you'll be interested, is Old Apricot x Butterbomb. Too early to say if it will make it to maturity, though ...

Wow everyone has been so busy and oh boy so many darling little seedlings to look forward to, would you believe so many things going on today that I did not even set foot outside. Very frustrating as my fingers itch to play in the dirt !
Trailer load of manure coming in next week :)
Don't know if I am going to get too excited about cool climate ones though, we have just had the Fire Dept around to warn us of an expected fire season, they want us to clear things from around the home (I only have tropicals that would shelter the home from fire but they want them cleared right away, so I will have a lot to do without nursing the delicate cool climate plants, it must be going to get very hot. The tropicals shelter the home from a lot of the heat so I am not looking forward to bare walls again.
Meanwhile I will enjoy watching you all grow out both the Tropicals and cool climate Brugs.
I will grow out a few seedlings but many of my brugs will be hacked right down so I will miss my mass displays and making pods this year as a result.
Hopefully the following year will be good for me- so over to you all to decorate these threads with your pretty babies ...I will have a handful of pretty trumpets (the ones not near the home) to show off now and then. But it will be a bit quiet here until everything grows again.
I love the sounds of some of the crosses ...should be fabulous.
Excess seeds always welcome here but let me know first and I will send a stamped addressed bubble envelope to you.
Enjoy your evening everyone, it poured rain here last night Spring rain is always sweet. :)

This message was edited Aug 12, 2011 7:25 PM

I wouldn't have thought the fleshy trunk and leaves of brugs would be a fire hazard. (Quite the contrary, I would think.) Although the smoke mightn't be so good. And you have to hack them down just as they're about to set the first buds of spring? That's tough! At least you're just cutting them back and not digging them out altogether. I suppose they'll just get more established, spread their roots and burst into a forest of blooms when they are eventually allowed to grow.

Shame about the seeds too, as you've built up a wonderful collection of plants. But with all of us now growing out crosses from each other and overseas, I don't think we'll be short of a supply ... just not from your beauties. Not this year, anyway.

I miss gentle spring rain; it's so dry here that I got a small shock when brushing the cat yesterday ...

I have pods on the Brugs not near the house BUT ! These rules were written for Gum trees etc but many enforcers don't understand that the lush green stuff stave off those flying cinders when the fires had hit the fence near our home it was the lush creepers that stopped them jumping onto the building, I can't argue because these people save lives. My plants will be ok ...it will just be a while before big flushes again ...looking forward to everyone's flushes all over Australia.

Oh well never mind I just hope they are wrong about the coming Summer.
Your cat looks like a rag doll cestrum.

I guess when you fight fires, all you see are fire risks.
Probably the only acceptable garden in that world view is one made of concrete.
But who can live that way?
... not a rag doll, just a regular moggie in relaxed mode :-)

Chrissy. I'm sorry about your brugs.
It seems that when ever there is some sort of disaster, there is an instant knee jerk reaction.
If only the 'powers that be 'would take a little time to think first.
There are lots of rules down here now too, concerning types of houses that can be built and plants , trees etc in areas that are fire prone.
If only the "greenies "would think past their silly agendas and see that a lot of our natives are some of the most fire prone, explosive plants to have around a house./ garden.
As you say, the soft green "foreigners" are a real help in slowing a fire down.
Same goes for road sides too. All the tree trimmings etc nowadays are just left along the edge as "habitat". Th is is just just extra fire fuel, besides being an ugly eyesore. .
Jean.