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

Summer came and went in a very unseasonal way...so maybe we will have a proper Autumn...there are so many
young plants just waiting to show us how beautiful they are, but not getting the chance, because the buds are dropping. Hopefully we can get a few to open before the cold weather gets here.

We had some great discussions in the previous thread, so please continue in this one...

I'll start the ball rolling with the Pink Panther fasciation bud...
It's ribs are much more pronounced than a normal PP bud and it's a much bigger bud..
Let's hope we get to see the flower.

We came from here.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1243283/

Here are today's pics of it.
With the very gusty winds that we have had the last 2 days, I thought that it would be best to give it some support, so I used a soft tie attached to a stake...
Notice the growth coming from the side, it isn't fasciated......I wonder if it will change.
The 2nd pic is of some normal PP buds around the same age...quite a difference...hey.

this is one of the plants I'm assuming that is OA?
i have it labelled as candida 'Peach'
but i think it's a typical OA bloom
What's your take on it?????
The 1st flower is a currant bloom in this Cycle which has not colored up as yet
the 2nd blooms are from 2009

Yeah that looks like mine, the common OA you find in the burbs.
I do wonder though if this may actually consist of a series a extremely similar clones, something I have been considering for all the suburbanites...

Dianne I can't wait to see what that flower ends up doing that plant is just bizarre.

Also I found another brug garden in the burbs the other day, pretty standard range by our standards and nothing special to you girls/guy
i.e. aureas, sanguineas, Frosty Pink, Knightii, OA
but large and healthy anyway... most of the garden was brugs... now that's my kinda garden!!

True, just I recall reading on older threads here some notes, one that OA seedlings are often similar and two that Knightii actually consists of several very similar clones (so strictly speaking cannot be a cultivar name or apply only to one? but in practical terms may be treated as the same), so I have been pondering that it might well be that there some seedlings mixed in the stock, but as you say most average gardeners just grow plants from cuttings, especially ones that take so easily like brugs. Suppose one could do some experiments crossing OA's etc. and aiming to see if viable seed can be produced...

Growing plants from cuttings for a very long time can accumulate viruses etc. so they get weaker with no new genes, so they can eventually be replaced by very similar seedling clones (selected for similar looks) which are healthier and more vigorous. Having said that original clones can persist for a remarkably long time... in Hybrid by Noel Kingsbury I read that sari lop figs grown from cuttings may be the same clone 2000 years old, and some seedless grape variety which may date back to ancient greece is still grown today in same region.

So I agree that in general most would be the old original clones... looking different in the differing climates/conditions...

So are all suburban pink suaveolens Frosty Pink? Has this been investigated? Similarly Is ours even the true American cultivar?

Wow Lucas, I have never seen more than one type of Brug in any of the suburban gardens....
Couldn't you borrow a cup of sugar and start up a conversation...lol
I was very worried about the top of the fasciated one, because the top is just like a small table tennis bat and it was catching the wind...but the soft tie has supported it, so far.

Where's Gena?........how are your seedlings?

For anyone who is interested, here is a site that has details of Alistair's book..
http://www.hceis.com/book.asp?id=11408.
It will be available from Florilegium, 65 Derwent St, Glebe NSW 2037... $95 not confirmed....it isn't available yet though...probably April.
I dare say Lucas that our older Brugs might rate a mention....if their migration is discussed.

I'm not even going to attempt answering those questions, Lucas! However, that whole business of different 'clones' of knightii has been raised by Alistair and I still don't understand it. (My fault, not Alistair's.) I can say, though, that it does appear (from OA crosses that Alistair has made, plus from reports from Wayne, and from Chrissy's OA x BB seedling I've got) that OA does tend to produce first-gen seedlings that look very similar to OA itself and so could easily be mistaken for OA. I also remember Alistair saying how odd he thought this was, as this sort of characteristic is usually found in species, not in hybrids.

I'm just going to adopt my fallback position which is that, as more and more people breed brugs, it will become almost impossible to identify the parentage of a NOID (i.e. without trustworthy records) with any certainty.

Yes Dianne, even though they are all fairly commonly encountered brugmansias locally it's rather unusual to have them all concentrated in the one garden (and multiples of the same plant too) (...well maybe not at all unusual to us!), so evidently the owners/past owners were either keen on cuttings and had roamed the burbs and collected them or bought at nurseries... i'll try catch up with the residents.

The book preview looks good thanks for that, looking forward to it. :)

Hey, notice that the cover photo on the RBG website (white brug) is different from the cover photo on the publisher's website (suaveolens sanguinea)?

This message was edited Mar 3, 2012 2:27 PM

edited Sorry, out of context.....don't mind me......

This message was edited Mar 4, 2012 12:07 AM

That monster cutting looks very anxious to grow, cestrum.....

Reading your's and Lucas' comments re clones made me remember a rose that is in my garden...it's a large growing rose, a hybrid perpetual called Reine de Violettes....I have been propagating it by cuttings since 1989 when we sold the house that it was originally planted in, since then, we have moved
5 times.....so the rose growing in my garden has been "cloned" 6 times.....Now it has reverted or changed to a rose with many thorns, originally it was almost thorn free......so in not quite 25 yrs it has changed a lot....

Have our Brugs changed? I think that I read that Knightii was named after a Mr Knight a gardener in England.....what did his look like....I hope Alistairs book covers subjects like that.

Yes it is cestrum, it changed overnight.....Alistair said on BGI that the book is being printed in China right now, so they may have had second thought's re the cover....
Though in 2 days, I've seen 3 covers....

Overnight? Wow, that's the stuff of urban legends! (Like someone's hair turning white overnight.) But if you saw it, then what can I say ...
Perhaps an advance copy of the cover was printed locally for PR, and then, as you say, changed before the final version was sent for printing in China. Wonder which one we'll end up with ... looking forward to buying it, that's for sure.

Dianne, I think that you'll find to keep a rose "true" you have to take buds. I wish Brian was here and he would tell you the whole thing. Colleen

Not stupid that question...I would have asked it myself...
But no, I always take a few cuttings to ensure it's survival and they were all normal branches, remember it was a cutting from a cutting...no root stock.
It has only happened in the last year, I noticed that the new growth had lots of thorns....I will have to take it out unfortunately.

I liked the original cover, it had a lovely Sphaero deep deep pink all the way up the corolla....I'm certain that is was the #6 in the RBG pics....then the red and green, now the white....

I had a second look at the cover with the white flower.....is that a pic or a painting? have a look

Might well be true, Colleen......I've never budded anything, have you?

This message was edited Mar 3, 2012 4:34 PM

No Dianne I have never budded anything, but Brian did it all his life. He had one peach tree with about 4 different varieties on it. Nectarines with peaches and vice -versa He loved to bud things. Colleen

Shame to lose your rose after 25 years and all those house moves, Dianne. Perhaps you could ask the question in the rose forum?
That white brug does look like it might be a painting. Will be interesting to see what the final cover turns out to be. Are you planning on attending the book launch?

Nope, cestrum..I go to Melbourne as infrequently as possible...lol
I hope that Lucas or Shaun go though.

Can't you tell it's raining and I'm bored.....

Just been to BGI and Alistair posted this.
" Chinese ad used draft graphics which will actually be the title page, not the cover The front cover will be the wonderful Marianne North painting of suaveolens and humming birds in both editions."

It is a lovely painting.

Wow...I'll try be there. :).

1800 Brugmansia cultivars?!... ridiculous lol.

That explains it. But what is 'Huanduj' anyway--the Chinese word for brugmansia? If so, why would it appear on English editions?

I suppose this page has come up in the past, but if you scroll to the end it has instructions specifically for striking cuttings of arborea brugs (use side shoots from the trunk): http://ibrugs.com/Resources/RootingBrugmansia.aspx

Lucas and Cestrum,
I have about 7 or 8 different named plants all I'm assuming are OA, i have to 1st ID them correctly then collect pollen from them and then the crossing will begin,
I have no problems trying to brake this myth 1 way or another, i do hope that there are a few different OA Strains so that we can cross them back to each other and get some thing even more stronger and prolific with it's blooms or even deeper in color,
I also have about 5 Knightii which i am, willing to cross with each other also just to be on the safe side and not just throw them out cos they look the same, (Just yet)

with Alistairs Book im 1 that will buy the book a few times if it's written in English and german and if there is 2-3 covers i could be interested in buying them also just to have a collection of them with different images
Just like Brugmansia & Datura i have both English hard cover & English Soft cover
was i disappointed when i got the German one first NO i just had to learn a few words in German to get throu then here comes the English Version WOWWWWW.....

Thanks for helping me out with the OA bloom

I will be going to the book Launch

You're an author's dream, Shaun LOL (Or, according to Google Translate, Sie sind Autor der Traum!)
My main concern with identifying similar-looking brugs is simply to ensure that I don't inadvertently have clones of the same cultivar. (Inadvertently being the key word here, as I have several clones of certain brugs which I have struck from cuttings myself simply because I wanted more or, in the earlier years, couldn't bear to throw out the prunings). But the results of your cross-pollination experiments will be interesting to watch, whatever they produce.

This message was edited Mar 3, 2012 6:01 PM

Thanks for the arborea link but i posted that before, interestingly it does not seem to be critical as I have rooted cutting from above the Y...
That said with most plants cuttings lower down a stem often root better, something to do with different cells, better still are branches touching the ground...

Yes, I thought that link might have appeared before. But, you know what they say, those of us who ignore--or in this case, forget--history are destined to repeat it ;-) In Australia, time of year (i.e. cooler weather) might be a more critical factor in rooting arboreas.

South American seems right, Lucas--my mind is still on China. Best I could find is this song: http://andes-fieldschool.org/Andes_and_Amazon_Field_School/Song_to_Wanduj.html

That is one beautiful ...insignis?
I love the tendrils.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brugmansia_insignis_Ecuador.jpg

Cestrum i have obtained these over the past 20years and have probably like you not wanted to cull
so i will systamaticly cull my old collection as need be but i do need 1 type specimen from the group to keep any way just crossing to cull really.

this is the 1st year that i have crossed as many blooms as i have because of you, chrissy, Jean, Lucas, Wayne & Alistair,
i would probably have just kept collecting garden Brugmansia from people if not for all of you
So now i will be trying many things that i would other wise not have thought of prier to BGI, DG & Ibrug

You've pretty much described the experience of all of us here, Shaun. Once, I would have killed for a double brug. Now, with so many seedlings coming on, when I had the chance to buy a double a couple of years ago at a local garden festival, I didn't want to--I'd rather grow my own LOL

greetings from the Black Lagoon ...yep ok a slight exaggeration, er the swamp.
Such a sorry mess out there, found snails in the Brug blooms trying to save themselves I guess, ants too, all sorts of bugs and grubs, spiders huge fat things from their feasting.
Those Big Floppy apricot blooms look so nice.
Yep me too, I would rather make my own doubles or enjoy trying to.

Ivoire has gone outside to brave it out with the big kids ...so long as the hail stays away (I had to put it out there because the leaves are so eager to grow), I am thinking of a few tons of Kitty Litter to soak the water up ^_^

Good to hear that you're still afloat, Chrissy! Hopefully no hail. A bit more rain over the next few days for your area, I think, and then hopefully some autumn sunshine at last (fingers crossed). Sun and a bit of a drying wind is what you need ...

My brugs are all standing up after the wind ripped the leaves to pieces. Lots of new growth seems to have popped out overnight with the rain.
Maybe this time a new lot of buds will come and stay on.
Jean.