January 2011 Archives

Our weather finally became the envy of the nation so I decided this weekend would be a great time to tackle a major nursery rejuvenation project. It was time to expand my growing area to accommodate more plants.  The first step was to clear the ground and treat the soil with a weed killer.  I opted to leave a couple of citrus tree stumps remain rather than crank up the chain saw.  I knew if I did that I would spend the day cutting down trees instead of finishing this task.
 
Once the ground was ready I covered it with ground cloth.  Last spring I covered about 4500 square feet of my growing area with cloth and this year I hope to cover the rest.  The ground cloth keeps my brugmansia plants from rooting in the ground and helps control weeds.  The new area I covered expanded my growing area by an additional 1,600+ square feet.  Last weekend I re-worked my sprinkler system to cover the additional space.

Once the cloth was stapled to the ground I set out to cover it with plants. It did not take long to completely fill the area up with 3-gallon size pots. These plants were originally grouped together to make it easier to cover them for freeze protection.  I'm gambling that we are not going to have another major freeze this winter...which of course means that I'll be grouping them back together again in a few weeks to protect them from another hard freeze.  :)  If we have light freeze or frost, I'll just run the sprinklers overnight to keep the plants from freezing.

It was exciting to see all the tiny buds that are forming on these plants.  If the weather holds, I should have a major Bloom--a-palooza going on towards the end of February!

This week I was rewarded with a beautiful Angel Trumpet bloom from a Brenda Delph cross involving Brugmansia Terri Schindler Schiavo x New Orleans Lady.

This seedling bloomed for the first time back in Spring of 2008,  I almost lost this Brugmansia seedling for good during one of our previous freezes.  Fortunately it has rebounded, and after taking its time growing this past summer it is finally back in bloom.  I really like its crazy tendrils.

I'm hoping it will color up some more as spring approaches.  After capturing additional photos of the bloom tonight, I sliced it  open to make it easier to pollinate.  I was surprised to see it had four full skirts!  I dusted it with some fresh New Orleans Lady pollen I just had gathered.

Those of you who are fragrance connoisseurs are probably wondering if it has Brugmansia New Orleans Lady nice fragrance.  I wish I could answer that question but I have a major head cold right now and I can't smell a thing.  :(

My cat often accompanies me when I work with my Brugmansias.  It loves to hunt and of course likes to impress me with its catches.  She usually does not bother with the small stuff like frogs and lizards, but would rather go after the big game like rabbits, field rats and birds.

Lately I think my cat has been spending too much time watching the Animal Planet channel.  She recently started positioning herself like a meerkat while she scans the horizon looking for prey. I'm having a challenging time convincing her she is not a meerkat.

Actually I guess I could say she is just a mere cat, versus a meerkat.  :)

I'm starting to enjoy my first hibiscus blooms following last month's killer freezes.  Here's Exotic Hibiscus Sun Charm illuminating a somewhat gloomy day.

Despite our record cold winter and recent freezes, my hibiscus plants came through relatively unscathed.  I think I lost a bunch of newly formed seed pods, but had no plant losses.  It won't be long and I should be able to get back on track with my hibiscus hybridizing.

In preparation for our December freeze I knocked down over 1,000 gallon-sized pots of my brugmansia seedlings and piled them up in a long row.  This made them much easier to cover and protect. 

The majority of these seedlings were ones from 2009 that came back from their roots after being damaged in last year's freeze.  They were scattered around in various locations and it would have been nearly impossible to cover all of them.  The majority of the seedlings are now blooming size and range from 3-6 feet tall.

I spent New Year's Day weekend trying to make some sense of this mess. The plants were on their sides and stacked on top of each other, not a healthy situation  I knew the plants would be too tall to stand up on their own, so I built a 6 foot wide corral to help hold them up.

I then relocated the plants to this corral, placing them pot to pot.  Because many of these seedlings had rooted into the ground earlier, I had to spend allot of time trimming off the tap roots protruding from the drain holes.  The stress from yanking them out of the ground caused them to drop many of their mature leaves so that made the stacking much easier. About every six feet I stretched a guide rope across the corral to help keep the plants from leaning over.

I spent two full days working on this project and I still have a couple hundred more to clean-up and move.  That will be this Saturday's project. I have a couple of other large blocks of gallon-sized seedlings in my growing area, but fortunately they are already grouped together so they did not have to be yanked and relocated in advance of the freeze.

It is exciting to see all the new growth flushing out.  A bunch have tiny flower buds forming too. I expect most of these seedlings to bloom by spring so I should have plenty of beautiful new blooms to share with you in a month or so.

Actually it only rained a single bird, but I was still startled.

I found this lone Cardinal laying in my brug growing area over the holiday weekend.  At first I thought it was the work of my cat, a prolific hunter.  Upon closer observation I could find no visible trauma to the bird.