Kathy
a great set up, you have there, it's so organized, mine are in the Basement also, everywhere, yours are so neatly placed, Congratulations on your Blooms

Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth-
It was all organized til hubby had to install a new toilet last night. I had to shove everything away from the wall. He had to climb up the half wall and into the crawl space under the bathroom floor to shut off the water, and when he came back down he accidently snapped off a branch of Angels Golden Dreams, got ticked, and threw the broken branch across the room. Later, I noticed where a part was snapped off, and asked him what he did with it. I told him it was my favorite brug and he said- "Geez- Kath- you've got 1000's of brug plants!" Fortunately, I found it, cut it into 3 green tip sections, and planted them in wet Perlite. Am hoping for the best. He's not excited about brugs like I am. ps- the new toilet is great!

Hi Kathy,
Your brugs look great in your basement! Gonna have to get
one of those! LOL!
Daydreams is so pretty she is another one of my favs once
she gets blooming she`s really pretty!
Sorry to hear about Angels Golden Dreams hopefully it will
take root for you, I know what you mean my DH is the same
way......not a plant person at all.
Congrats on the new toilet!

Karen

Hi Kathy,
Nice pics. Being a newbie to this site, I was wondering how to post my pics also. Do I have to join photo bucket to post pics on this site?
Thanks
Jerry

Hi Jerry and welcome to the brugs forum! Thanks for the compliments on my photos- Yes you have to upload to Photobucket first before adding them here. Upload the photos to photobucket that you want on this site. Once your photos are in an album, click on the left box below the photo.Then go to the bottom of that page and click on the blue bar that says "generate HTML and image code". A new page will come up- "Generated HTML, Ebay and IMG Code
HTML clickable thumbnails for Ebay, Livejournal, MySpace, etc. - recommended" Left click on this first section under those words, right click on the word "Copy",then open up a new page to the brug forum. At the top of the page you'll see "post a message" or Post a follow up" Click on that to open up a new post. Fill in the header, then a few sentences in the body, then left click,and right click on the word "paste" , and your photo will appear in computer lingo. Click on "Preview" to check that your photo is correct, then submit. It may sound complicated, but after a while it's so easy. That could be our initiation rite of passage! By the way- I'd like to invite you to our 'Newbies" Contest this Wednesday here on the brug forum. There's a post about it, please be sure to read it if you're interested in adding more brugs to your collection. The Contest is Wed. night at 7 pm, EST. I'm hosting it and there are alot of beautiful brugs to win for s&h! Come and join us! :)
kasha77

Thanks for the info Kathy. I will try to post some pics in the next few days. I seriously thought about entering the "Newbies" Contest but then I went out in my overwintering garage and counted the new brugs and my brugs from last year. 80 plus. Plus there will be about 20 or more Daturas. What to do with more? Would have to start putting my hostas on the compost pile.lol. Thanks for the invite though. I look back at the time and care that went into the 20 I took care of last year and now I'm starting to wonder about the 60 extra for 2011! I think I will stick to those I have now. I think this may be the first time I said no to any plant offering. I have to get out of town and back to the country.
Thanks Again,
Jerry

Jerry- You sound like me! I have over 250 brugs in my gardens and they're 3 feet apart. I'm starting new cuttings of most of them plus I'm still getting trades in the mail all of the time- how sick is that!?! Guess I'll be selling many plants off next spring, plus maybe enlarging my gardens?
kasha77

Doggone it Kathy). I think you've gotten more blooms in your basement this year than I got outdoors all year!(grin)
Mine are all down in the basement supposedly going to 'sleep' for the winter but they still keep trying to grow. The cuttings you sent are doing great but creamsickle didn't amke it (again). I think that's going to be my spring purchase.
Thanks for sharing your brug children w so many of us.
Will

Oh my God, here I thought I had brugs, nothing compared to what I just read! I had a white one died, got one from Prince the brug is doing great, I have something called versicolor, my single yellow from my mom, my double white from my mom. The few I got a couple of weeks ago from Kathy, to hear you have 60's 80's 100's you all make me jealous!! Those sure are some beautiful blooms specially the double flower!! One day One day. Thaks for sharing your blooms with us Marcie

Doggone it Will- how many of those Creamsickles do I have to send you? :) LOL!I have a nice cutting of her started with great roots- Check with me in the spring - it has your name on it! Today I feel that the basement is up to my expectations. I can actually walk around the entire room to get to all of my plants. My room is only about 150 sq feet, so I had to organize carefully. Here are more blooms I took pics of today- strange - do you find that the flowers get much darker in the basement?
{{gwi:582695}}
Daydreams
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Daydreams
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A cross by Brenda B.
{{gwi:582698}}
Cherub- look how dark she turned!
{{gwi:582699}}
Cherub
{{gwi:582700}}
My future in Brugs!
{{gwi:582701}}
Look closely- you might see your name on one of those cuttings! Thanks everyone for the great trades!

kasha77

Oh! My! Gosh! Kathy I can't believe the setup you have!!!! And the flowers!!! Now are you growing them under lights and what kind? How do you control the inevitable bugs that will appear with so many brugs in such a confined space? And do I have to say it? DayDreams is to DIE for!
WOW!

Thanks Tommysmommy!
I'm using one grow light and one regular light per set up- I'm sorry- I can't remember what kind they are- I got them at Walmart and Lowes. I also keep a regular light on all the time. I remember last year that my biggest problem with insects was aphids- I would defoliate all of the leaves and spray them with a soapy solution. Sometimes I'd wash each leaf on each plant in a bucket of soapy water. I know- insane! In the spring, if I had any aphids left when they went outside, the ladybugs would swarm in and clean them up! I love those little guys! These are Daydreams first blooms- aren't they a little darker than normal?
kasha77

Tommysmommy,
As Kasha said,aphids can be controlled with a soap solution with a few drops of alcohol added. My biggest battle is fungus gnats. After fighting them for years,this is what works for me. Right from the start when I pot up my cuttings,I crumble up mosquito dunks (BT)and mix a little bit in the soil mix so that it is even through out the pot. I also sprinkle some on top of the soil.Also,I put 1/4 of a dunk in a gallon jug and let it soak for at least a day,and water with that,you can re-use each piece about 3 times.It's the larvae in the soil that do the damage to the tender roots of seedlings and cuttings.The adult gnats are breeders an annoying,and I use those sticky fly strips for them (4 for about $2.00) at Lowes or Home Depot. Like I said,I use this from the start,because the gnats can appear over night,and there are a lot of them by the time you first see them.
Dan in Pa.

Wow, that is quite the set up Kathy! It's very impressive and looks like a lot of fun too! Thanks for sharing and inspiring us brug enthusiasts!

Happy Thanksgiving,

Bo

Oh and another thing- I didn't get the fungus gnats because I put a layer of sand on the top of the soil of my containers. They hate that & it really works!
Thanks Bo- wish you could've been a newbie winner!
kasha77
ps- Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

LOL, can you say A d d i c t e d????

Ha Ha! Ruth Ann, I know- my 28 yr old son Donny affectionately introduces me as - "My Mom- the BRUG dealer!" Anyone want to try a brug? The first one's free!! Tee Hee! :)
kasha77
It doesn't get any better than this!

Not nearly as many as you Kathy, but here's some of mine.

{{gwi:582703}}

{{gwi:582705}}

{{gwi:582708}}

{{gwi:582710}}

Here's Maya... she's doing great!

{{gwi:582711}}

Hosta Rookie-
I love your set up too! The pink labels look like little flags! So cute! Just be sure to remove the tape when you plant- I didn't and actually lost a Phanomenal to strangulation last year! I buried the stem with the tape deeper under the soil, never thinking! oh -well- I just sectioned the tops and made many babies from that plant! You're very organized- I love it! Congrats on Maya- she sure does look fine!
kasha77

By the way Emily-
Were these from trades or were they your own stock?
kasha77

Many are from generous GW members, some are from my own, plus I bought some from other places.

Obviously I have much more self control than you guys when it comes to brugs. I can't say the same for my knitting obsession tho, as I've been accused of having a yarn store in my spare room.
Aphids: I just took my NOID white which is 18-24" tall and rinsed all the leaves in the kitchen sink. This is the 2nd time I've had to do it, the aphids were prolific on its leaves.

I hadn't thought about strangulation but I actually remove the tape and replace with plant markers when they're planted outside. I use markers for my hosta and heuchera too. Out of 75+ named hosta, I've only lost 3 markers. (I think my twins had something to do with it though :-)

Em

What's a basement? Just kidding, I went to KC this year and went into my Aunts basement, hadn't seen a basement in probably 25 or 30 years before that. We don't have them here. There are 3 basements on the island and they aren't "real" basements like up north. After the 1900 storm the basements were full of water and there was a yellow fever epidemic, so it's illegal to build basements here, not to mention the water table is so high they would stay flooded.

I've recently received cuttings from several very generous people here and I just can't tell you how appreciative I am. Between the hurricane, fire and freeze I lost almost 100.
Tally HO!

Hello Hosta Rookie,
Afterseeing those pics, I wanted to ask you a question. I saw that you had some pot with more than one brugs cutting in it. I planted to brugs in one pot because at the time, I didn't have enough pots to put each in there own pot. Now, one of them has taken over and the other is like a runt. It really hasn't grown much and I want to seperate it. Will thye brugs be unhappy if I tear apart the root ball? I know some plants are more sensative to root disturbance than others. I am wanting to seperate them in the spring and plant both of them right into the ground each in there own hole. I also read here that brugs are heavy feeders. I was wondering if putting compost or well rotted cow manure into the bottom of the hole first would give the a good kick start.
Thanks,
Andrew

Andrew-
I'll answer for Em- no they'll be better for it. Just remove the plants from the pot & swish them around slowly in a bucket of water and the roots will separate easily. They'll grow better for you. In spring I always amend the soil with well rotted composted horse manure, leaves, grass clippings and anything else I have on hand. Stir it up in the hole, and add a thin layer of reg. soil. Plant the brug, then backfill it with more soil mixed with the good stuff.. just make sure it isn't fresh manure so it doesn't burn the plant. Also- I found that if I buried the little plant way deep, like a tomatoe plant- (straight up and down) it was more drought resistant in the summer. I barely watered 3 brugs that I planted this way, and they grew huge and did great!
kasha77

Sorry for missing your question Andrew... I haven't been visiting the forum as often so thank you for answering Kathy.