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Re: Brugsmanias

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:19:19 -0700, Carol <moholy@gardens.com> wrote:

>I've been meaning to ask someone about the flowering time for these. I
>bought the yellow/orange variety (Grimaldi?) a couple of years ago and have
>it in a big pot on my front porch. It's doing very well, although it needs
>a lot of water in a pot to survive -- plant plus pot are about 6.5 feet
>tall. It does get filtered afternoon sun and it is very warm and sheltered
>on the porch.
<snip>
>I feed mine regularly with a kelp based fertlizer, starting off with a
>16-16-16 and then changing to the 3-20-20 formula later on. Maybe I went
>wrong by putting it in too large a pot? I see flowering specimens in the
>nurseries that are in small, 2 gallon containers and they are blooming like
>mad.  My pot must be about 30 inch diameter and about that high.

I usually like to grow a few of these each year and find that pot-size
seems to do little to affect flowering (apart from curtailing the
season due to being excessively pot-bound).  Over wintered cuttings,
headed back to around 6 - 8" tall, are potted directly into 15" tubs
of rich, loam based compost and placed outside in March/early April.  

Once the plants have started to grow away, they are fed with either
Miracle-Gro or a tomato fertilizer every week until mid summer.  From
then on, the plants are fed virtually every other day and are kept
constantly, very moist (usually around a gallon of water or more every
day), to which they respond by producing immense leaves and growing
very quickly indeed.  By the end of June, most plants will be about
6/8ft. tall with leaves up to 12" or more long.  The main problem with
this is, that they will often be very badly affected by very strong
winds and can look decidedly 'tatty' for a few days after a heavy
storm.

This year, Brugsmania rosei (sanguinea) and B. arborea are budding up
well and should be in full bloom within a couple of weeks.  I think
that the plants simply need to attain a certain size before producing
flowering wood.  I used to consider that either day-length or night
temperature was the key factor, but having seen these plants flower
very successfully in areas where year-round temperatures and
day-lengths are more or less even, I'm not so sure.  

Cuttings taken from the flowering shoots, seem to branch more freely
and are most likely to flower earlier during the following year.  A
couple of years ago, I had B. suaveolens flowering from early July
onwards, on plants produced in this way and they remained much more
compact, growing to about 5ft high and across by October.   However, I
prefer to be able to sit under a plant that is in full bloom and drink
in that heady fragrance, so I go for the taller plants that are
reproduced from cuttings taken from non-flowering wood during July.   

Short - 3" long tips, are taken from shoots growing low down and stood
in water.  Roots are produced within a week or so and the plants ready
to go into 5 or 6" pots very shortly afterwards.  Regardless of how
big they grow, the cuttings remain in these pots until the following
spring.

Here, Brugsmanias will continue to flower well into November, although
as night temperatures start to fall too low (below 45F), they begin to
look increasing 'tired'.  Owing to the speed of growth, I do not
bother to over-winter large plants - they take up far too much room
indoors and I let them remain outside until they are killed by the
first frosts of winter - usually in early/mid December.  In years
where we do not have any hard frost, plants that are allowed to become
dry, will often survive and grow into vast specimens by the following
summer.

David Poole
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