That's the story with this brugmansia.  It is a cross between Miss Caylie and Genevieve and is one of several plants I have growing from this cross.  Here's what the flowers looked like when the plant first bloomed in November. It was so ugly it almost ended up in the compost pile.  Knowing that the first blooms a seedling produces may not resemble the flowers the plant produces as it matures, I decided to let the plant stay for a couple more rounds of blooms.  Over the weekend the second ...

Actually it wasn't the fox and the hound, it was the fox and my dog Inga. I apologize for the dead animal picture, but this is what I encountered while I was out spraying for pests on Saturday morning. I heard the ruckus in the wee hours of the morning, but I had no idea what was shaking down outside.  We've had red foxes around our house as far back as I can remember.  Usually I spot them late at night when I am returning home from the office.  I'll spot them as they scurry across the road ...

This was the only new seedling blooming this weekend.  It is a cross between Kleine App x Unknown and New Orleans Lady.  It is trying very hard to be a double as you can see by the second skirt still stuffed inside the bloom.  The peach color has deepened since I shot these pictures.Here's another picture showing the nice recurved form.

I recently was rewarded with a couple of new double blooms on my Brugmansia seedlings.  The yellow one is the one that I'm most excited about. It is a cross between Hawaiian Double White x Ecuador Pink and Jamie's Monkey Business.  It only had the one bloom when I snapped this picture but several new buds have recently formed and should be open before the new year.  This was just one of several plants I have from this cross but it is the only one with double yellow blooms. ...

Brugmansia Delta Dawn was a vigorous grower for me and loved to show off her large over-sized yellow blooms.  During the couple of flushes she had this summer there were so many blooms that the branches were touching the ground.A couple of weeks ago I was ready to pollinate some of her flowers and I noticed what appeared to be stem blight, the scourge of brugmansia growers.Delta Dawn is now history.  I chopped her up, tossed her in the dumpster, and sanitized the garden tools used in the ...

That's my current dilemma as many of my brugmansia plants start their fall blooming cycle.  I've been anxiously awaiting the cooler weather to make it easier for my crosses to take.  This weekend I focused on my variegated varieties because the blooms were prime.  I'm hoping to find some type of variegation in a plant with a pink, yellow/orange or double bloom.  I know it is a long shot, but you never know. Here are a few of the many crosses I made:Sun Sport x Axel RoseSun Sport x MayaSun ...

This weekend I continued to clean-up my brugmansia seedling collection.  I decided to let the plants in one gallon pots stay in their original pots rather then up size them to larger ones. Most are rooted in the ground so they have the stability they need to stay upright.  Another group of younger gallon size plants had been attacked by caterpillars so I removed the damaged leaves and spaced the plants out.For my major weekend project I opted to move my larger 3 inch potted seedlings up to 4 ...

Today I finished my tie job and managed to place most of my mature potted brugmansia seedlings in neat rows.  I ended up with 6 rows with 40-50 plants per row.  Most of these seedlings were started in early spring and many will be blooming for the first time soon.  I expect that at least a third of these will be tossed into the compost pile because their blooms will not make the cut.  All have the potential to display unique one of a kind flowers. About 20 over-sized plants were planted in ...