Friday, September 3, 2010

Brugmansia Bludgeoning

My Brugmansia is now about seven months old and has been growing really well. It was stalled after it's cross country adventure, but growth picked up and I had to repot a few days ago. The roots had nearly completely filled the old pot! I could even see little roots appearing across the surface. Seeing as I want a giant plant I through it in the biggest pot I could find.


I also did a little trimming. Most of the time Brugmansia are trained into a standard form with a long, thin trunk leading to a horizontal canopy. This apparently is the best way to display the large bell-like flowers. To be perfectly honest I hate this form. The plant has no trouble displaying it's beautifulness in nature with multiple branches. I've decided I'll train it into a dense bush.


I started by lopping the top off. This will help encourage side-shoot growth. I also noticed that the lower shoots have been dying off. I removed the mature leaves on the side of the plant facing south (the sun) so these little shoots could get full sun. I'm hoping the combination of these two will result in a nice bushy plant. Once the south-side shoots have matured, I'll remove the rest of the large leave so they can get as much sun as possible.

Has anyone tried anything like this before? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've also noticed something seems to be eating the leaves. I'm thinking it's the giant BC slugs. Any tips on keeping these at bay? Happy Friday!

8 comments:

  1. I haven't tried it with brugmansia before, but frost usually knocks them back anyway so I know they come back nice and bushy!

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  2. @Rainforest Gardener, I'll have to think about that frost thing. If all else fails I guess it's worth a try.

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  3. Maybe put some pennies around the base? I know they don't like copper, and won't cross it. I'm looking at copper tape for my raised beds next year. Those slugs are awful!

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  4. @Laura, Sounds good, I think I'll give it a try.

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  5. There are a ton of slug-getting-rid-of techniques... Some involve making a little lake of beer around your plant. The slugs go in, but they don't come out!

    I had problems with leaf miners in my Datura, but never with slugs. I figure the two genuses are related enough to have similar problems, but maybe not... Do you have close-up pictures of the leaf damage?

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  6. @Kenneth Moore,I don't have any close-ups now and it's raining. Maybe tomorrow. I HATE leaf miners. My poor poor Adenium. :(

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  7. Your brug is looking good! The red one I started this past spring hasn't fared as well. I had it in the shade and slugs ate half the leaves. I potted it up in the sun, soon it will be inside again. Maybe next year will be better for it...

    I've read they won't flower until it forms a Y shape. So once one of those side shots take off it should be ready to flower.

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  8. So - how did it turn out? I have always heard that you should exactly the opposite of what you've done here.

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