I know, and it gets more ridiculous with some of the similar brugmansias, especially those raised from cuttings. I see brugs in stores for $40 to $70 although at that price they are at least in 4 or 5 gallon pots and sometimes in 10-gallon pots.

I guess they are making money hand-over-fist with those common white daturas. I have some in a semi-shady bed between the chicken coop and the garden and never deadhead or cut the 'thorn apples' off of them because it is a snakey area. Thus, they reseed all over the place as thick as grass. Guess if I dared go into that area, I could harvest from my "gold mine". : )

Today, weather permitting, I'll be potting up datura seedlings to bring to the Spring Fling. The hail storm yesterday demolished some of my potatoes, but the tiny daturas probably survived unscathed. I love datura because it is in that rare group of plants, along with cannas, that anyone can grow. They belong in a group of tough plants described in this way: "They won't die and you can't kill them."

I love the daturas not only for their huge white flowers, but also for their fragrance. Between the daturas, four o'clocks and moonflower vines, my yard smells heavenly at night all summer long.

Hi, Lisa & Dawn-
I used to work at TLC, and they are a bit pricey on their plants, but they serve a wealthy area of OKC and have some very knowledgable plantsmen working there.
I'll just bet they were selling "Brugs. " which is a relative to the Jimson weed, the large woody fragrant shrubs with pendent flowers and bean-shaped seed pods coming in several varities and are annual in Oklahoma.
Daturas are smaller and herbaceous with upward pointing flowers and spiny seed pods. Mostly annual, but matters not as they re-seed rampantly. They are both fragrant and called "Angel's Trumpets".
Kinda depends on if you want large (10-15') plants with drooping flowers (BRUGS) or smaller (3-5') plants with upward facing flowers (DATURAS).
They come in white, pink, lavender, yellow, and I think even an orange Brug. They are truly a beautiful, fragrant, showy plant.

Jeanie

Jeanie,

I have both brugs and daturas, some raised from seed and others from rooted cuttings. Some years I have 10 or 12 kinds, some years only 4 to 6. I usually overwinter my brugs in pots in the garage, but it got so cold this winter that I think I lost 2 of those 4 overwintering brugs.

The white datura Lisa and I are talking about is Jimsonweed.

Some years I raise the double yellow, white and purple daturas and the yellow and purple singles, as well as a white-purple wild one. This year, I didn't start any seeds, although it certainly isn't too late, so all I have right now are the white jimsonweed, one purple-and-white datura sprout that I just found yesterday, and the two brugs, whichever ones they are, that survived the cold winter. One of them might be Lemon Twist. The other likely is Brugmansia suaveolens. I guess time will tell. I am fairly sure it will be Ecaudorian Pink and one other whose name I don't even remember that didn't survive the winter in the garage. E. Pink has trouble any time the temps drop below about 20 degrees, and we went to -3.

I grow daturas in the ground but the brugs cannot handle wet clay in the winter, so I raise them in pots that I drag into the garage during the coldest weather. They often continue to bloom sporadically from November through Feb. when not much else is going on in the garden. My pots are the tubs that molasses-sweetened cattle feed comes in, so they're about the size of whiskey barrels.

I love brugs and daturas and they make our patio simply gorgeous when they bloom. I hate that the brugs froze back, but the two that survived just resprouted from the dirt a couple of weeks ago and are making really fast growth.

Every 3rd or 4th year I lose a lot of the brugs to the cold and have to buy rooted cuttings and start over.

Dawn

Jeanie, yes, I was talking about Jimsonweed. I would love to have brugs, dearly love to have them, but I am lousy when it comes to overwintering plants. I don't have any room to store them and by the end of the season I have lost patience :).

You used to work at TLC? Cool! I do love going there and I buy some stuff there. They do carry a nice range of plants. This year I have been whining about how much EVERYONE is charging for plants. I don't have the stats, but there has been considerably more stickershock when I get to the register. My guess is the gasoline prices are affecting prices.

Not only is everything higher, there is less to choose from as well. Of course, it is early yet! I keep forgetting just because we have been regularly having 90 degree weather, it isn't time for warm weather plants yet!

In the past I have grown a lot from seed, and this year I am wishing I had.

There was a lady who used to be on the forum, went by the handle "OKC1", and she managed to overwinter the brugs she grew in the ground. I imagine she grew them in well amended soil and she heavily mulched them during winter.

I, too, have the common Jimson Weed, but I'm not going to pay $10 for a plant when I can sow seeds from a $2 packet - very easy peasy from seed.

I haven't attempted Brugs yet - but as Jeanie mentioned, they get quite large, and I just don't have the space for them. I grow a lot of white blooming and night blooming plants for the sphinx moths, which includes the Datura, as well as 4 o'clocks (Mirabilis jalopa). Night Blooming Jessamine (Cestrum nocturnum), Moonflower (Ipomeae alba) and others. Honeybees climb into the flowers to get at the nectar, too. I find them early in the morning in and out of the blooms, playing tag.

The variety I have is Datura inoxia, which has large, ovate leaves, while the other hardy Datura is D. stramonium. It's leaves are somewhat cut, but they are very similar.

I don't believe the colored Daturas, yellows and purples, are as hardy as the species mentioned. On the other hand, Datura metal is supposed to be hardy to zone 7, but it never overwintered for me. It may for Dawn as she is a bit warmer than I am. It is more upright in growth than the Datura inoxia.

I am amazed that I don't get more reseeding out of my Datura than I do. Some say theirs seeds everywhere and it is annoying, but I have only found very few seedlings off mine.

Susan

I kinda-sorta thought you girls were talking about Jimsonweed, as I think that's what they carried when I worked there, and it is like the "cranefly- mayfly" issue. I had always heard the giant mosquito-looking bugs called Mayflies, when, in reality, they are Craneflies. When people say "Datura", the picture they have in their head is Jimsonweed, the large white drooping flowers plant. I bet SOMEWHERE in Oklahoma and Texas, they grow wild. Oh WOW, dawn, you've grown the different varieties of BOTH these plants? Cool! I don't have any, but I DID plant some Four O'Clock seeds this year and may try Brugs next year. I'm pretty sure, Lisa, that the price of fuel is driving up the prices of plants, groceries, etc. This fuel thing has GOT to hit a ceiling soon, as I've already given up driving all over the state to check out nurseries, which is one of my favorite things to do. I need a raise in my SS. HA

Jeanie

Jeanie, I know, I need a raise too! Or to quit buying plants!

The white one has overwintered for me occasionally, but not this year. I did save seed, but I just planted them last week, so we'll see if they decide to grow! I'm hoping the rain will have encouraged them a little.

I've grown four o'clocks off and on for a lot of years. Mine are usually fairly pitiful, but I have seen pics on Oklahoma Gardening that show HUGE plants. The ones I saw were as tall as a person!

Susan, I'm always amazed at how much you grow considering the space you grow in! It's amazing! I'm hoping to encourage more sphinx moths too. (sorry Carol!)

Lisa

Hey Lisa, I always thought you would be nice to have for a neighbor, but not now. You can keep your nasty ole hornworms in your neighborhood. LOL

I have maybe 100 -150 seeds from "Black angel" burg, double ruffle dark lavender edges,stalk and stems of dark blue black those really truely interested serious collectors contact me JCNOKC@cox.net for 10- 15 seeds per self addressed stamped envelope.

Lisa,

I've noticed the plant prices are higher this year. I raise most of mine from seed anymore, but that doesn't stop me from looking to see what the stores have.

I do think a lot of it is higher fuel costs.

Susan, I remember OKC1 and her brugs. I never, ever could amend our red clay enough that it would drain well enough to overwinter anything that needs "well-drained" soil because our neighbor's property sits several feet higher than ours so we not only get surface run-off from their land but underwater drainage that goes on for months and months after persistent, heavy rainfall. Sometimes I feel like we have an underground creek running from their place right underneath my yard and garden....and for all I know we may actually have one. We do have springs just a couple hundred feet away. This past winter, our clay stayed saturated from September, when 9" of rain fell, until the end of Feb. or early March when the high temps and strong winds dried it out.

I have oodles of Four O'clocks...they reseed worse than anything I've ever seen here, except possibly bindweed. I grow D. metel, D. stramonium and D. inoxia. They all reseed well here but I never know from one year to the next which ones will or will not reseed. The double purple daturas do not reseed as well for me as the double yellow ones do, but sometimes none of the doubles reseed and only the white single-flowered ones do. It's always an adventure in May, or sometimes in late April, to see which ones are popping up out of the ground.

Jeanie, Jimsonweed grew wild in Fort Worth just a few blocks from our house when I was a kid. It still grows in that same semi-wild area. I have seen it growing wild occasionally here in Love County, but the farmers and ranchers are not very fond of it and have done a pretty good job of eradicating it. In my clay, 4 o'clocks are a weed, but I love 'em anyway. I have them in several colors, but mostly the bright pink/fuschia and then a few whites and yellows. In the shade of the pecan tree, they get 6 to 7 feet tall and a good thunderstorm knocks them down. In more exposed areas they get maybe 4' tall. Their aroma is so beautiful that it makes up for the many hundreds of volunteer seedlings I pull up every year. The moths love them. We have sphinx moths here from about March through maybe November of every year, so I try to always have some sort of night-bloomers for them.

Dawn

Question:
Do Four O'Clocks crossbreed and make the multi-colored ones? They are so pretty.

Jeanie

Carol....LOL...Susan and I will do our best to hoard all of them in OKC!

I may have to try 4 oclocks again. I think they finally all died out from where I had them.

Lisa

I have some seedlings coming up of the 4 o'clock 'Broken Colors' (yellow and magenta). I will try to dig up a little one for you, Lisa.

Dawn, your 4 o'clocks get that tall? Wow, wow, and wow!

I am ripping out most seeds of the Cosmos sulphureus 'Cosmic Orange this year. They just became too unruly last year, growing to 7' tall - can you imagine that big on a Cosmos?

I hope my big Datura comes back, darn it! It had gotton pretty big. D. inoxia is more of a spreader, staying fairly low to the ground. If the big one died, I will probably get a few seedlings.

Heeheehee - we're going to have to work in teaching Carol how to love a hornworm, Lisa!!

Susan

Jeanie, I don't know that they cross easily. I've grown the pink/fuschia ones for my whole life and they haven't crossed with the Broken Colors ones (how would I be able to tell though, lol), or the white or yellow ones. I do have some that are half white and half yellow...each flower is half and half, but don't necessarily have them every year. They might be crosses. I also have Teatime Rose most years. As much as mine reseed, you'd think all the colors would be mixed up and crossed by now, but they aren't.

Susan, Apparently they really love our soil, which is amusing to me, because not much else does. They grow in improved clay, our narrow band of silty sand, and completely and totally unimproved red clay. The tallest ones get morning sun, dappled shade at mid-day and very late afternoon sun. I think they are getting the perfect blend of sunlight and protection from the worst of the heat. In that same area, Castor Bean plants get 12 to 16' tall, even when I plant them as late as July, and again I think the part shade really helps them with the worst of our summer heat.

I can't imagine Cosmic Orange getting that tall, but I've had some of the tall cosmos get that tall. The tall ones break too easily in the strong winds that accompany severe T-storms, so in recent years I've gone with shorter ones.

I can love a hornworm as long as it is not on my tomato plants. If they venture onto the tomato plants, they are dead ducks. We have billions of hornworms (OK, that's a slight exaggeration...it could be only millions) and they're all over the place on native nightshades, but rarely bother my tomatoes, and I am glad.

Lisa, I can bring some 4 o'clocks to the swap.

Dawn

Susan and Dawn, ohhh thank you!!! I would love some four o'clock seedlings!

Dawn, what are you looking for? I'll be happy to see what I can get for you.

Lisa

Lisa,

Suprise me. I love suprises.

Dawn

If y'all want brugs that will overwinter in the ground, try 'Charles Grimaldi' or 'Dr. Seuss' ~ both yellows. I've grown more than a dozen varieties and those two are the most reliable in ground that I have grown. I always had trouble with the pink brugs coming back. I would cut them to the ground the day before the first freeze, cover them with a large upside down pot stuffed full of leaves, and put a large rock on top of the pot to hold it in place. This technique worked 50% of the time. But my yellows were 100% reliable and are still growing there after 10 years.

Jeanie, if you'll go to the GCLC Market behind Homeland in PV, I know they have a couple of yellow brugs in their greenhouse that were grown from cuttings from my brugs. They are very nice sized plants and should be blooming sized soon. Tell Jim there that I sent you. :) Maybe he'll send someone to the greenhouse to get you one, as they don't have them at the market yet. These were from very hardy stock brugs and should come back for you every year with little effort.

Last February in Key West we saw brugs growing as tall as two story houses! They were so impressive! What I wouldn't give to live in Florida during the winter months. Heck, maybe I could even get used to the humidity and live there year round, LOL.

Dawna

Dawna,
Hey, hi, my friend! I'll pop in and ask Jim about your brugs when I come into town the next time. So good to see you back on the web again!

Jeanie

Hey, there, Dawna! Good to see you back again! Have really missed your posts about all things unusual! I saw your pup photo - what a cutie! Just want to squeeze those fat cheeks and kiss it! My cats would be jealous, but who cares?

I knew there were some who grew brugs in ground and overwintered them, but I had forgotten you were one of them. Ten years is a long time. Wow, I'm impressed!

Just wanted to say "hey" and hope to see you around here more.

Susan

Hey Susan,

Yeah, I don't get on GW nearly enough anymore. I'm not as obsessive as I used to be with plants (thank goodness). I am growing one of the very hardy brugs this year, but it's name has been lost over the years. It's either Dr. Seuss or Charles Grimaldi, but they are so similar I can't tell them apart. I'll take cuttings from it this fall and y'all are all welcome to some if you'd like to see if it's hardy for you. I haven't overwintered it here in the ground, but my brother has and his comes back every year, and he doesn't even cut his back. The soil here has a lot more clay in it than at my old house which was pretty sandy.

I got a new brug this year that's a Native Habitat's double peach. The blooms get 21" long and 11" wide. It is INCREDIBLE!! There is a pic of someone's plant here on GW and I'll try to link it. I hope mine will do as well as it. The guy I bought it from said it's his all time best double brug and that it produces blooms very quickly, unlike a lot of doubles. Well I couldn't find the picture I was looking for but here are some pics that show it.

Which pic of my pup did you see? The yorkie? Oh, and BTW, that was not me in the pic with the big charcoal wolf. That's a friend of mine's mom. Jeanie told me she'd forwarded you some of my pictures. I used to have a website linked to my page here but not any longer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Native Habitat peach brug

Beautiful, beautiful! I adore the brugs, but in my limited space front yard, I grow only larval host and nectar plants for the butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. nowadays.

I bet if Dawn sees that she's gonna LOVE it!

It was the photo of the dark grey pup, and he is soooooo cute. Love that color, too. Yorkies are really cute dogs, too. My friend's Yorkie literally "talks" to her, which I think may be a trait of the Yorkie breed. He is just too funny!

Susan

Dawna,
came into town yesterday and ran by nursery to ask Jim about the hardy yellow brugs you had given him, and he said he was saving them for propagation.
The pic I sent the girls was of the darling little wolf/dog pup that you were considering getting one of the litter now or next year. He really is one if the cutest puppies I have ever seen.
Wow! A peach brug? I want one of those, too. That's my problem. I want EVERYTHING! HA.

Jeanie