June 2010 Archives

Many of my Brugmansia seedlings devastated by this past winter's freeze are finally starting to bloom.  It is amazing how resilient these plants can be.   One that really caught my attention tonight was this beautiful seedling from a cross between Orange Zest and an unknown cultivar.

Orange Zest is a new cultivar I introduced and registered last fall.  It came from a cross Liz Fichtl made between Jacayna and The Chief.  These blooms have a strong resemblance to those of Orange Zest, but are larger.  They also have the same pleasant scent as orange Zest.  I know Orange Zest is in bloom right now so I'll try to grab a comparison shot of the two side by side.

This seedling is growing in full sun and thriving.  It is certainly worth watching for the rest of the season to see how it performs.

I have lots more seedlings from this cross yet to bloom, along with plenty more from other crosses involving Orange Zest.  You can bet that I'll have more Orange Zest eye candy to share as the summer goes on.

My Brugmansia seedlings are slowly coming back into bloom after this past winter's devastating freezes.  The first to bloom are repeats, seedlings that bloomed for the first time last fall. Here's one that I put it my keeper zone last year to see how it performs this this summer.  It is a seedling from a cross made by Brenda Delph involving Brugmansia Lady Liberty and Jamie's Monkey Business..



The blooms are a light butter yellow color with a thick texture.  Now that our temperatures are up in the 90's, the blooms are much lighter than there were in Fall.

The blooms have a rather elegant look to them with the way the tendrils curl over.  Even as the blooms age and the tendrils start to re-curve, I find the blooms to be equally as appealing.

As an added bonus the blooms had a pleasant lemony smell to them.

I'm not certain if this one will be worthy of registering, but I do plan to keep it around so I can use it in my hybridizing program in Fall.

For some strange reason this 10 foot tall monster Brugmansia seedling survived the freeze.  It was part of the group that I iced over to protect and think it had just the right amount of support to keep the plant from breaking under the weight of the ice.  This plant recently became the big show-off in my brugmansia field by proudly displaying nearly two dozen large pink blooms.  With the plant hovering over 10 feet tall, it quickly became the focal point in my garden.


Unfortunately the tag is missing so I cannot tell what cross the seedling came from right now.  I know I took a bunch of photos of this plant last fall, so I should be able to identify it once I start looking at the photos.

Although I have been growing Miner's Claim for three years, I have yet to see a bloom on one until a few weeks ago.  I lost my Miner's Claim in the freeze this past winter so I obtained another one from Logee's. I have only has this plant for two months and it has already rewarded me with a couple of blooms.  Here's the first bloom at its peak.


Of course I tried pollinating it, but the cross did not take.  I was able to grab some nice pollen from this bloom and I have it in the freezer for use this fall when the temps drop off.