Gorgeous!

not bad for a 8in wide flower in winter!

Are you growing the green leaf variety? Or the variegated one?

I have the solid green type. Someone told me a long time ago that the solid green bloomed more than the variegated so that's what I've always grown.. No clue if thats true or not. Seems like everyone has the variegates and they bloom just fine lol.

My green one is still blooming, now, over 2 months of blooms. IF I can get a variegated bloom open in time, I want to TRY and cross them, and see what i get. The Variegated one NEVER sets seeds. The green one sets huge seed pods all the time.

Well from personal knowledge, The green one grows like a weed! I have to cut it back to nearly a stump to control it. i cut it back about 8 times a summer! And it still blooms with hundreds of flowers on Oct 1st like clockwork. But this year, (i think because of Hurricane Irma), it bloomed exactly 1 month late. Nov 1st. MY Variegated one, RARELY blooms. Its bloom is massive, compared to the green one. But the green one has a wonderful aroma to it at night.

MY Variegated one has no aroma to it. I keep reading that it has a 'lovely wonderful coconut scent'...mine has no scent of any type. And this year it has 6 buds on it. This is its first opened bloom, in over 5 years. And for a rather big plant, it only has 6 buds on it. I say that Hurricane Irma also did something to this plant, and made it bloom.

We had a cold wave 3 wks. ago, in the low 40's, and now I have buds. I don't know how all these others have Variegated plants that bloom all the time, and have a scent to it. Mine has never had any aroma to it, and this is the first year, ever, to even have 6 buds on it. I usually get 2 flowers if I am lucky!!

Yes that's odd that the variegated flower has no scent. Maybe it just needs to mature a little more. The flowers are really nice though! Maybe save its pollen to use on the green one?

Are you able to save any pollen in the fridge or freezer in an airtight container. We at the Brugmansia International Forum, freeze and even trade brugmansia pollen. Most kinds of pollen can at least be refrigerated if not frozen. If freezing you should bring it up to room temperature before you use it.

When flowers are fragrant at night, that's when you have the best chance of the pollen 'taking'..they use their fragrance to lure the moths or whatever pollinators at the time they are most receptive to be pollinated. My brugs and other fragrant at night/ bloomers like to be pollinated at night and then have the humidity raised around the plant. So water the roots being careful not to get any on the blooms. Works like a charm.

As far as Irma making plants bloom..just a thought..sometimes when plants are stressed and think they might die, they hurry and bloom and try to reproduce/make seeds. Annuals really do it but I've also observed this on perennials. So you may be right lol.

Do you know if Solandra grandiflora and Solandra Maxima are the same vine? When I google I get varied results. For some reason I thought Maxima had a bigger gold flower and grandiflora a paler more cupped flower. When I google one site lists them as the same and another as different hmmm.

I THINK they are the same...the green form. I rarely see the Variegated one fro sale anywhere. i can save pollen ,but the Variegated one is all buds, still in their covers, over a week away from blooming. i can save the green varietys pollen. BUT the Variegated flower NEVERS produces a seed pod. I fertilized this one, I put all the pollen i could from its own flower, and the flower fell off today. Only stays open 2 days.nights at most.

The green one last up to 4 days/nights. The second night it starts to produce fragrance, i dont know what fertilizes it. I get so many seed pods, but the pods, but the pods open when they are still 'wet' inside, and the seeds are all stuck to the insides of the pod. I have yet to try and plant seeds. It looks like a big white ball,but it opens and looks rotten, like it is full of bugs, but it isnt.

The Variegated bloom only lasts 2 days/nights at most. So i dont know if it will produce a seed pod with the green forms pollen,but I am going to have to try. By the time it opens the rest of its blooms, the ones on the green one ,will be done blooming. But it is still putting out new blooms, when I think it is done, there are 20 more! It is acting VERY odd this year.

Its probably hummingbird/hawk moths doing most of the pollinating although it could be any type of moth and male mosquitoes also pollinate night bloomers.

The Solandra and Brugmansia are both in the same family: Solanaceae. So they may have the same pollinators. The hawk moths love getting up into the brug flowers which are long trumpets and some can be 20 or more inches long. Their fat little bodies fit right in there lol. They get up into the flower then shoot themselves straight down like a reverse rocket then bounce up to the next flower. Sometimes I take a flashlight out and just watch them They are pretty comical. They also love the NBJ, and moonflower vines, etc.

Boy that moth is a bat!!! The Brugs. that I USE to have, never had any seed pods, i tried to pollinate them myself, no luck ever. I wish I could see a humming bird, I know they are next to impossible to see, but I have never seen one, in my yard, let alone flying anywhere. Only in pictures. That moth will give me nightmares! Guess they hated my Brugs. or anything that blooms in my yard.

I am hoping my Passion vine. 'Quadranglous' will bloom this coming summer. It is over 50 feet long, and no blooms in 2 years, since it was a 2ft. plant. Third time I am growing it, the cold snap we had, has made a lot of the leaves go brown and dried-up, but there is still solid green leaves/stems. My other passion vine blooms great, but it is looking rather shabby now, I might have to cut it off the fence and replant with the very common blue/purple passion vine.

Think it has reached it end of its lifespan. It attracts the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, and its caterpillars, but there is so much of the vine, what they eat doesnt show at all. But I am hoping my other one blooms this year. It is about to reach the red flowered one, so...it has first preference:)