Valley Gardens: The trials and tribulations of the opulent tropicals

Published on April 13, 2007

Tropical plants are the latest rage in ornamental gardening. Magazine articles, catalogs and books tout the joys of featuring banana plants, passionflower vines, canna bulbs and hibiscus in the landscape. Most of these plants are too opulent and enormous for my gardens, and I have turned a cold shoulder on transforming my modest perennial beds into a tropical paradise.

However, I have long coveted an elegant tree-like tropical with huge pendulous trumpet flowers called brugmansia or angel's trumpet. A small tree with its dramatic foot-long blossoms was part of a patio garden at the New England Flower Show in Boston a few years ago and later I was amazed by brugmansias grown by Carolyn Kibe of Northampton.

In the winter of 2006 I interviewed Sydney Eddison, a Connecticut gardener, about her new book, "Gardens to Go," which has gorgeous pictures and information about growing brugmansias and other container plants. I decided this was my year to try my luck - but it was the wrong year.

My Northampton friend Ann Burger was also intrigued by the dramatic angel's trumpets. She saw a pink brugmansia, which had been on her wish list for a while, in the Logee's Greenhouse catalog last spring. "That ought to be fun to try," she said.

So a year ago we drove to Logee's in Danielson, Ct., on a spending spree. I was looking for a white 'Cypress Gardens' variety, which the catalog said would bloom at a young age. Logee's, unfortunately, was promoting a yellowish peach variety called 'Inca Sun' and it wasn't until the very last glass house that we found what we wanted. Ann chose a 12- to 14-inch tall 'Pink'. The only white specimen, a 'Super Nova' not a 'Cypress Gardens', was so large it barely fit on the back seat of the car and it cost $25, but, hey, this was my splurge.

The best laid plans

Tropical plants can't live outside in April, so I planned to keep my "Brugsie" in a sunny window until time to move houseplants outdoors, normally Memorial Day Weekend. As you probably recall, May and June that year were cold and wet, so my Brugsie stayed indoors until mid-June. It was watered almost daily and fed once a week and it continued to grow taller and taller.

I knew instinctively that brugmansias won't bloom until they branch at the top and create a crown or umbrella.

Ann's "just branched on its own" by July but mine refused to change its vertical growth. It looked really weird.

I panicked and emailed Sydney in Connecticut. "Pinch it" was her response. Alas, I procrastinated on taking that drastic step until mid-July. Then I got bold and snipped off the leader.

Brugsie went berserk. Not only did it throw out three branches at the top -- which was then nearly 5 feet tall -- but it sprouted side shoots all along the stem. It was a gorgeous mess. I was much encouraged by the early August heat wave and was convinced Brugsie would bloom soon.

At that point I should have followed Ann's practice and removed all the side shoots to maintain the single leader.

However, again I procrastinated and much of the plant's strength went into that side growth. After visiting her in Northampton, I went home and pruned mine radically, leaving just the three branches that had forked at the top.

Brugmansia envy

Brugsie thrived but there were no flower buds in sight.

Meanwhile, in late August, Ann emailed "I have 17 buds!" We kept waiting for them to open up but it took nearly a month before the first shiny pod burst open and the tightly furled flower emerged. It gradually elongated well beyond the protection of its pod but the flower appeared to be creamy yellow, a big disappointment for Ann. Finally, in late September the first pleated bud opened and it was a delicate pink.

"One thing that surprised me was the blossoms were much longer than the one I had seen years ago," she said. Each flower was at least 10 inches long. "They were more pendant also." She said the color deepened as the flower matured over several days, gradually losing the fine green veining it displayed at the beginning.

Ann's brugmansia lived on her semi-sunny patio for the summer and she was able to carry it into the garage on cool September nights to prolong its bloom.

"I finally cut it back and brought it inside on Friday the 13th," Ann reported.

"Blooms were not going to happen in our really chilly weather. It didn't seem to mind the upper 30s but was unhappy when it went down to the low 30s."

Ann said she was disappointed that it took so long for her plant to bloom. In addition, "It was ungainly. I don't think the plant looked particularly attractive" until it bloomed.

Mine certainly looked ungainly! And it never bloomed at all. Perhaps it was unhappy out in the garden instead of enjoying the protection from the wind that a deck or terrace provides. We don't have a patio and I wanted the poisonous plant to be out of reach of Jarvis, our curious terrier.

Obviously, I should have cut it back a lot earlier, but nowhere did I read when or how to prune a new specimen. Under its overwintering instructions, the Logee's catalog did suggest pruning at the time of bringing outside, but somehow I missed that critical advice.

Ann and I both planned to overwinter our brugmansias in our cool basements, as recommended by most experts. Carolyn Kibe kept her three specimens going for nearly a decade using this method.

Talking to Carolyn was most encouraging for me.

She said her three plants from White Flower Farm arrived as dormant sticks. "They didn't produce any blooms the first year or two. I was very frustrated. The third year was when they really started to go wild."

I resolved to be patient with my angel's trumpet and hoped that next year it will produce those gorgeous, fragrant enormous white trumpets that I had coveted for so long. With advice from Patrick Taylor at Andrew's Greenhouse and information I finally got from the Internet by Googling "brugmansia," I prepared to overwinter my plant, hoping for the best.

These six months later, it turns out "Brugsie" survived the winter nicely in a cool, dim basement. Last weekend I brought it upstairs into the warmth and light of the plant room, where it is sprouting new growth. It will be well-fed and watered until late May or June and then placed in a sheltered position in the garden, or possibly on the screened porch.

Editor's note: The author wrote the account of her "brugmansia adventure" last fall and has updated the continuing saga for this story.

Valley Gardens will appear twice monthly through September with weekly columns in June. Civic organizations planning garden-related events, including plant sales and garden tours, should contact Cheryl Wilson by email at valleygardens@comcast.net, or by mail at the Amherst Bulletin, 100 University Drive, Amherst, MA 01002.