I have a number of jasmine, including Grand Duke which is extremely fragrant in the same area as my brugs. When I step outside in the evening the jasmine is what I smell. If the jasmine isn't in bloom I can smell the brugs without getting close to them. When the jasmine is in bloom I can't smell anything else unless I go directly to it. The scents don't seem to combine, at least not to me. The jasmine's the predominant aroma.

I also have Night Blooming Jasmine.. It is very strong.. I keep mine in a pot and do move it around... Congrats on your new Brugs!!!What did ya buy??
Blessings
Chena

more of the same.

Pink skirted sauvoelens

Versicolor Peach

KYLE'S GIANT WHITE

MILK & HONEY

Pink Suavolens

and 4 unknowns which could be either Pink Suavolens, Insignis Pink, White Suavolens, Audrey O, Jean Pasco, Milk and Honey, Shredded White

I was after scented stuff. My next round I will be after some real unique plants like doubles, triples,and Brugmansia sanguinea.

I wanted to get my feet wet before I started collecting. Who knows there might be a mutant in the group. I am dedicating about 1/4 acre - 1/2 acre to the brungs. I have about 3-4 hundred dollars worth of plants and supplies over the last few months.

I was looking at maybe 10 Night Blooming Jasmine. Everthing will get its own large planter and will be movable for the 1st few months until I see how they like their locations. I have some trumpet vines to throw into the mix along with some cassia flora candlestick plants. I was looking for extremly hardy fast growing semi invasive plants.

So that is the plan. I do believe I have enough that it will be sucessful. I do have about 200 voluteer passion vines down in the back. Is there something else that is a must have that I missed?

Jeep, what zone are you in?

Must haves are the things you want and love!!!!It sounds wonderful... I hope you will send pics of WIP!!! I would love to see it evolve into your paradise...
Blessings
Chena

Zone 9b just outside of Corpus Christi Texas about a mile off the water. Pictures of WIP, hmmm, I will do that. Not much to look at yet just a bunch of small to medium plants and a bunch of cuttings rooting and more on the way. I really hope they all will be tolerant of my climate and well water.

Now a question do Brungs put down deep roots or lateral roots. If they put deep roots then I might try a few directly in the ground. We have a 6-8 foot water table.

Ok, I gotta suggest Confederate Jasmine, not really a jasmine I don't think, but a fast growing, evergreen, extremely fragrant vine. Blooms for a month or longer here and would probably do very well in you zone. Gardenias have a great scent also...They're sometimes a little fussy but worth the trouble in my opinion. You might want to research some gingers too. I grow the "butterfly" type here and they have a wonderful fragrance, but I'd bet that in your zone you'd also have many other choices of hardy fragrant gingers.

Fragrances ahhhhhh. I am going to purchase some Japanese Honeysuckle. Looking into Confederate Jasmine. I have had no luck with Gardinas. Butterfly Gingers never heard of them but I will google it and see. We have summer heat factors sometimes close to 115 degrees. Kind of melts humans and plants. This is why I am after invasives. They do survive well with plenty of water. I have a deep good well that will proably never run out of water. I flow teasted it last summer for 7 days straight. 30 gallons per min. This was for a geothermal heatpump. The water used is also used to irrigate. So much water and such bad soil (sand). Now That I have almost given up on using the native soil and am going to switch to large containers and Potting soil and bury the pots. I believe I might have a good degree of success.

Our best time of the year is anytime but summer the weather is great.

Here is a sattelight/map view of where I live. I am actually
to the right of where it shows me all the way to the end of the road 3rd house on the right from end. Semi arid coastal desert I believe is a good name for it.

http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=2275+Kirby+Rd,+Aransas+Pass,+TX

jeep461, let me warn you that Brugmansia hate the high water tables and staying wet all the time. Wishing you the best of luck as we had jasmine with our when we first started but found the fragrances of hundreds of brugs were enough!! We also tried to make sure these are now on one side of the house in one location. You are down there in a beautiful location and should do well.

Hey Jeep, As far as a high water table, just plant in raised beds. You being in zone 9b it would be a crime if you didn't have some kind of citrus tree. You may want to try Gardenias again, the thing with gardianus is that they can't take the hot midday sun, if you plant them under a tree or on the East side of a building, they should do fine. Confederate Jasmine that someone mentioned is a good one too. Another vine would be Clematis armandii, an evergreen vine with long leaves and very fragrant flowers in Feb-March, wonderful plant! Someone also told you about butterfly ginger (Hedychium) great plant too, sweet honeysuckle scent! If you want evening fragrance, something I would never do without is Nicotiana Aztec, very strong, wonderful scent.

I am covered in Brungs right now but the Nicotiana Aztec is spposed to be easily grown from winter sown seeds. I will grow a patch next to the porch. Now I have done some research on butterfly Gingers I found some and was about to buy them then I read they were better grown in wet conditions like a water bog, pond etc. I researched some more and found some that were ok to be normally watered. These were expensive. I like the semi invasive plants. They might have to survive during the summer for a week or two only on a timed sprinkler zone all by themselves. In the summer heat factors can get upto 115 degrees. It likes to melt plants and Humans. We get 4 months of this summer torture. This year I am going to mix in some water crystals with all of my plants to see if it will help.

Thanks for the help the Nicotiana Aztec is definatly a winner and will be planted heavily. Now all I need is a few good shade plants to put in a 20' bed next to the porch.

Jim Potts

jpotts461@gmail.com

Jim,

That far down along the coast you must give plumeria a try. They love sandy soil too. I know they are planted outdoors in the Galveston area. I might be able to send you a few generic yellow cuttings in the Spring if you're interested. Also, have you ever tried tuberoses?? Wow!, what a fragrance -- sort of like a gardenia combined with jasmine.

Dave I would love some Plumeria in the spring. I was talking to a girl at work that used to work at a commercial Nursery. She told me plumeria is growing all over the Island and some wild. Hmmm I look everyday to see what is around on the way to work. I see lots of tropical waxy plants and some vines. Every house is trimming and there are mounds of cuttings sometimes 5 and 6 ft tall. All I see is oleander cuttins and chopped up bushes. I looked on ebay and there were something like 1500 items. I do not know which one would be extremely hardy for my area and scented.

Tuberosa, now it took some work but I found some info again I am not sure of which ones would be extremly hardy. Is it the single mexican one?

Let me know.

Jim

Ya'll are killin me!!!!LOL You and your tropical areas.... I have been lookin at Plumeria and they are pretty proud of them... I would hate to spend the money for something that is very needy or ...I could KILL!!! LOL I may still have to give one a try.. they are so very beautiful..There are sure alot of choices tho!!! Any fav's!
Chena

Chena let me get through this cold spell and I will see who is growing it on the island and take my clippers. There are all types of tropical stuff which I know nothing about growing. I will ask a few people and see if I cannot get a bag full. I will send some your way.

Jim Potts

THAT SOUNDS WONDERFUL!!! I only wish I could go with you and take Dave, Steve, Karma and Wildflower !!!LOL Maybe we can get our own little plant train running... Spring can't be that far away!!!I'm always livin for spring and the new oppurtunities it holds....
Chena

Yes, we love being in the tropical climate. Makes growing easy, just plant it in ground. Our soil is very sandy, so we have to pretty much use double the water and fertiliser to keep water loving plants like brugs happy, but it is worth it. We have a mixed fragrance garden around our pool area. We chose our brugs for scent rather than color, and actually notice slightly different fragrances among the varieties. They are planted with night blooming jasmine, japanese honeysuckle, plumeria, lakeview jasmine and highly fragrant roses. We have noticed that the scents you get depend on the overall wind conditions and what is blooming most at the time. The brugs seem to predominate, although on windy nights, their scent and that of the honeysuckle and roses seem to get lost to the jasmine. The best nights are those that are warm, with just a slight breeze to stir the scents around to you. Then you can smell the scents of all the plants, usually alternating as the breeze shifts ever so slightly. I love the way the rose scents mingle with that of the brugmansia. In the house on breezy evenings, the brugmansia provides an all natural air freshener... we have these planted at strategic locations on all side of the house where there are windows so that the breeze in any direction will disburse the perfume in the windows and throughout the house. Luckily we have no allergies associated with the pollen from these guys. Oh, and btw, when the citrus are in bloom, it just adds to the mix and really makes for a heavenly experience.
Dave.

THANKS!!!
Now I have Z10 envy...LOL Sounds wonderful!!! I hope you share some pics..I have a lemon Tree in the house that is starting to bloom I can hardly wait.. The only scent around her right now is Cow #@*& ...BUT if you have a ranch somehow that smell is good...LOL smells like $$$$$$...
Chena

Dave glad your eye is ok. Hey on the topic of sandy soil just how bad is it? I live on the Texas coast and fight the sand constantly. Ours is sugar sand and I am trying to figure the best way to plant Brungs in it. If I were to run a garden hose all day full force 20-30 gallon a min. It would only wet a 6 foot diamter area. Is yours this bad?

Jeep, I can't imagine sandy soil like that! Yup, you've got to try plumerias! They would thrive on that. That's approaching hydroponics (LOL!). Are you growing citrus? You've gotta have satsumas and others.

I think with brugs, you'll need to amend the soil with lots of organic matter to absorb and hold water, and then mulch, mulch, mulch. But hey, I don't live in your area, so can't really comment. Up here we have clayish soils which stay wet sometimes too long!

jeep461 wishing you the best of luck down there, that soil is the pits and I remember our trips to the coastal area when we lived down there. Nice area but alot of soil work will need to be done to raise Brugs in that area. I would seriously thing of huge pots for your growing them with a watering system that would enclude a mister. There is a lot you can grow there and I've just taken several cuttings of our Meyer Orange if you are interested in a spring cutting. Let me know.

My Brugmansias don't seem to be strongly scented. One is a pink (a versicolor type, maybe "Frosty White"), and the other is a white (maybe an xCandida type).

Datura wrightii gives me a much stronger and better scent. It smells lemony. Better bloomer too, and it gets more stares and questions from passersby. Probably because Brugmansias are common in my nieghborhood but I probably have the one and only Datura.

I have a Cestrum, C. parquii. It is not as strongly scented as its reputation suggests it should be, but if you go out late enough it smells like banana cream pie.

Can't grow things like Plumarias. Way too cold here. Some Jasmines grow just fine. I have a real Jasmine, J. polyanthemum, which I think is one of the most strongly scented, and a "Confederate Jasmine", Trachelospernum jasminioides, which is even more strongly scented than a real Jasmine.

Also have Mandevillea suaveolens, which is touted for its fragrance, but everybody in my family thinks it smells vaguely like Camphor. Definitely "medicinal" in any case.

Oh yeah I love cuttings. My water system is a knock out as far as quantity and quality. It turns them out like a brung machine on steroids. I have no citrus right now. I have been looking at citrus, plumerias and Palms. Now for plumerias they say I would have to take them inside during winter. I know there are people who raise them but I have not asked if they dig them up for winter. I doubt that they do. But that is on my list for this week.

I am currently trying to buy some queen Palms and Mexican fan Palms. These dang brungs just have me smitten. I know if a plant will put out 5-6 foot roots it can obtain constant moisture year round.

Now for global Warming. We used to be tropical and I only had a few garden hoses. We used to get almost daily pop corn showers from the gulf. Now we are usally in drought conditions all summer. I am lucky to have a good well and unlimited water supply.

I would be more than happy to pay postage or trade for almost any plant which will survive here. About all I have to trade right now is Brungs and a couple hundred Passion Flowers. My Passions are very invasive they grow on non irrigated areas and across my neighbors yards and fields. There are Passiflora incarnata and are highly medicinal.

I have learned a lot and appreciate all of the feed back.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful:

Jeep461,
I have some plumerias that I started from cuttings and should be able to have cuttings this spring. If you are interested I would trade with you. I only have one brug. A double white that I purchased this year. I will be planting it in the ground this spring. I would love to have some cuttings for colorful Brugs. Dave in Nova sent me a few cuttings but unfortunatelly they did not root so I lost them all. I will keep on trying. If you need some plumerias, though, let me know. - Jardinera

Sure I will trade. I now have way too many brungs. I just inherited a 3 gallon pot full. See post on the most fragrant brungs. I got these guys growing like weeds in their water bucket and directly in soil. - Jim

Our soil here isn't quite sugar sand... it's more like beach sand. We're very close to the beach, and they fill the lots with sand that looks like it came right from the oceanfront, even has shell bits in it. I find no problem growing brugs or anything else in it, as long as you remember to water enough to keep the soil moist. In the 90 degree and no rainfall days of summer this means the sprinklers on about 50 mins every morning. I use the manual system cutoff for days when it rains, and if it rains heavily, you can even go 2 or 3 days without watering. In cooler weather I can usually cut this back to watering about 45 mins every other day. Topsoil is sooo expensive here, I didn't bother amending our lot. We do mulch heavily, and allow dead and fallen leaves to accumulate around the plants, and this tends to build up some organic matter in the soil over time. The other big thing to remember is that since you're watering so often, you need to increase your fertiliser rates accordingly. The amounts of fertiliser we have to use to keep our roses and brugs happy would probably kill plants in a very short time in regular garden soil. The water leaching through the sand carries a lot of this away though. The only good thing I can say for sand is it's virtually impossible to overwater any plant. Even when we get torrential downpours and the yard is soggy one day, give it a day or two and it dries out just fine.
Dave

Jim - I have a meyer lemon tree that will need trimming this spring. It gives great big, juicy lemons. I did not know that they grew from cuttings too. You are welcome to some cuttings if you like. Let me know. - Jardinera

Dave, thanks for the imput. Yep it sounds as if you have the same soil as mine. A few years ago we had about 15+ inches of rain in about 7 days. I was trying to dig holes for a batting cage and had water running horizontally in the hole. Amazing!!
Hey what type of fertilizer do you use? We have free mulch at the dump all you can carry. So I will be making a few trips considering I would need close to 2+ cubic feet per plant. I checked and your second favorite forum is antique roses. What do you grow on that sand???

Jardinera I will try to grow anything that is sent to me or I can get a cutting of. I now carry pruning sheers in my truck. I sure hope old man summer does not burn the gadenerer out of me again. I have tried to always get aggresive plants for this area. I belive our nurseries just try to sell what ever is pretty and at a good price. I have never seen some of the varities I have researched and purchased anywhere at a nursery. The last nursery I was at the lady looked at me like I was crazy trying to build a big brug area. Then a week later she has 150+ big plants and I get her cuttings.(from her daughter she was not there) Hmmmmmm, I thought that was very strange. I have never seen a Brug in a nursery down here in the last 15+ years. I was a good sight.

Thanks again for all who responded I have learned a lot.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year,

Jim

Jim - I will send you some plumeria cuttings as soon as they are ready for trimming. I have put your name on my calendar so I will remember when I trim them.
Happy New Year to all!
Jardinera