Angelic Blossoms

Brugmansia

My foray into the world of Angel's Trumpets began last November, when a couple of gardeners from Dave's Garden were generous enough to send me some 'sticks' for rooting. When I received those foot-long stalks, I had my doubts as to whether anything would come of them. Woe to the unbeliever...

They quickly rooted in water, I potted them up, and they grew under the lights in my basement until spring, when I could put them outside. Only hardy to zone 8, they're a tropical well worth growing in containers, or planted in the ground once it warms enough. I didn't plant mine in the ground until mid-summer, but next year they'll go in as soon as I can safely put them there. In the containers, they were much slower growers; in the ground, they went NUTS.




Earlier this spring, as I was walking around Stuckey's Greenhouse in Ft. Wayne, I spied this variegated brug. Healthy foliage and variegated, which I'm a sucker for anyway, this one came home with me and hasn't disappointed me.

I had it on the front porch most of the summer, which has a shaded western exposure. It did okay, but wasn't showing any signs of blooming, so about a month ago, I moved it to the back deck, where it gets morning sun and afternoon shade. Just this week, it let me know how happy it was that I'd moved it.

Twelve trumpets, an intoxicating rose scent, and even the blooms are 'variegated' in that they are varying shades of apricot. The cultivar wasn't listed on the ID tag when I bought it, but I believe it to be 'Sunset' due to its growth habit, scent, and pattern of variegation.

The other brugs have done well, too, and we've seen blooms of white, yellow, and pink. Most of those smell like lemon soap, and like all brugmansias, the scent is intensified in the evenings. You can smell them just by walking in their general vicinity.

They are prone to white flies, which I discovered while they were in my basement this winter. (Just WHERE did those come from?) Outside, they've got them too, and I'll want to take care of that problem before I dig them up and bring them inside for the winter. Neem oil seems to work fairly well. Outside, the white flies don't seem to harm the plant, but inside on the smaller plants they really yellowed the leaves by sucking the sap from them. I've noticed outside they only seem to bother certain plants of the brugs, not all of them.

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