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 ...

I returned from a two day road trip to find a dead catfish in my driveway.  It looked to me to be about a 3-4 pounder and had most likely only been there for a half day.  How on earth does a catfish end up in your driveway????  Were aliens responsible?  Does this have some deep meaning behind it?   I'm used to finding dead animals in my yard, but never fish.  Both my dog and cat enjoy hunting.  For my dog she's usually responsible for a few possum, rabbit and field rat deaths each ...

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 ...

Saturday I trekked over to Mt. Dora for their annual plant festival.  It is rare that a plant festival matches up with one of my few free weekends so I was psyched.  You never know what to expect at a plant festival.  Sometimes all the vendors are selling the same plants that you would typically find at your local Home Depot, while others have growers with hard to find plants.  Mt. Dora had both and I came home with a few treasures. A couple of the plants I found  were plants that used ...

After a crazy month with my job I finally have time to do some gardening...and some garden blogging.  I have some major catching up to do.  The first project on my list is to deal with my over-sized brugmansia.  I have at least 250 plants in 3-5 gallon pots that are at least five feet tall.  With all the wind we have been having it looks like mother nature has been bowling in my yard using the brugs as bowling pins.  More brugs are laying down than standing up.  So my task is to create a ...

Gardening is my passion and right now, almost an obsession.  At one time in my life it was a career, but the great Florida freezes of the 1980's changed that.  I'll have plenty of time to reflect on that later, but right now I have to run out and make sure the snails aren't making a buffet out of my brugmansia seedlings...