I'd think it would girddle itself?chocke out...as its trunk aged.
Do post progress!

Gosh, I havn't been to this forum in a while but am thinking I should check in more often....

I think that's really creative and would love to see you post your progress also! Maybe if you braided them very loosely then the stems would have room to grow and not choke each other out....

Instead of choking, they may just grow together as if grafted. Should be interesting to watch. I do think if you can get two or even three that bloom at the same time together it will be a show stopper. I have planted 2 and 3 different colors of Rose of Sharon in one hole and that stops people short trying to figure it out. They have so many trunks that it is impossible to look and see where the different colors are coming from.

It is not something that can't be done. I remember reading years ago, that if your garden is very small and you need two fruit trees for cross polination, you can plant them together in one hole and just trim each so that they are not overly crowded. Go for it!

I have done tried in the past and the real difficulty was that 1 or 2 of the 3 would grow at different rates and thus becomes difficult to braid as the stems get less pliable with age.
You don't need to keep the roots separated.

Thanks for all your suggestions/input. I wish that brugs could be grafted like fruit trees but I guess people haven't had much success with brugs so the only way I can figure to get 2/3 colors on one, is to braid them. I have seen a brug espaliered (sp) once but I haven't tried it.
I have heard of planting fruit trees together for 'square foot gardening' but I guess when you plant two together, each one only produces half of its normal fruit set and you end up with one trees worth of fruit~ditto for tomatoes (or so I was told lol). But it is still better than no fruit lol. I also always thought that corn had to be spaced a foot apart but I recently saw on GW that someone had a whole mess of them crowded into a rectagular rubbermaid tub and they all had full ears of corn on them!

Does anyone know which brugs will flower at the same time?

I have alot of different kinds that I can take cuttings from but I am not sure (haven't really kept track) which ones bloom at the same time, some I guess bloom more continuously and some all at once and then sporadically.

I wonder how I could get the trunks to bend the way I wanted? Keep them in a pot for awhile and turn toward or away from sunlight? If it is a single stem cutting and the top keeps growing new growth then wouldn't it be softer?
I guess if I mess it all up, it would be okay since they are just extra cuttings lol.
Thanks again~

Why not plant 3 in a whiskey barrel? I've got a Charles
Grimaldi, Insignis pink and some kind of peach that is
supposed to be an Alba Plenta in the same barrel. I think
it is gorgeous, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow.

Regards,

Jack

blicon, Jack, I'd love to see a photo of the mixture. Sounds like fun. Are they stunted? Do they bloom at the same time? You've got me thinking.

I bet the best materials to use for this experiment would be seedlings.
Their stalks would be the most pliable for braiding as they grow I would imagine. You wouldn't be cetain of the colours you would end up with, they have a high chance of all being whites. At least you could try for flower presentation differences by using sauveolens and versicolor seeds. Then at least if they turned out all white flowers, you could end up with some nodding, some hanging and some semi horizontal blooms. :))

I see a lot of valid ideas & suggestions presented. One more idea for this project...maybe 3 different colors from the same brug species would have similar growth rates, facilitating an easier braiding process. I would think starting with smaller cuttings of the same length would be a good way to go. I'm with Millie, betting the stems will merge together where they cross each other. Fun idea!

Patrick

Jroot ---- the peach seems to be in flower all the time, it
doesn't spread as much as the charles or the pink so it is
not as prominent as the other 2. The charles and the pink
seem to take turns.

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Regards,

Jack

...Neat! It's like a kalaidoscope that changes colour. They don't seem too stunted either. Well done.

Jack that is beautiful! Nice job..You really can't tell with all the trunks and whatnot that there is more than one brug in there unless you got up close. Is it in the front yard? I bet it would stop traffic .
Lots of good ideas here. I think we should all try this project and report back next year with our photos:)
My cuttings are very skinny ~I tried to get small ones so I could braid easier. It may take a year here even with the long growing period that I have. I found that if I put them by a window and turn toward the sun one will bend that way. So I guess I will just keep rotating and tying them (I been using long rubber balloons because they didnt cut into them as much as the twine.) It looks hideous with rubber balloons on it lmao! but I think once the stems stiffen up some I can cut the balloons off.
I will have to protect them if it freezes to keep them from having to come back and be rebraided (another thing I hadn't thought of ...)
Seedlings would be excellent ~does anyone know if double white comes true from seed? also good insights on the blooming at once prob. jroot, perhaps similar cultivars will bloom and grow at the same rates. Wish there was more brug info out there lol..

I was on a site and saw this pic of Brugmansias being grown at Shinjuku Garden in Tokyo. Brugs on a trellis. That's a new one for me.

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Bump!

Chena thanks for bumping this post. Some of those brugs are gorgeous. I think I'm going to take a couple whiskey barrels and plant a few varieties like Jack did. His plants looked so healthy and full. I bought plants from him off of Ebay some years back and to this day I've never received bigger plants. He sent me a couple with rootballs that filled a 5 gallon pot!
Karyn

WOW I wonder how this was accomplished Id love to try something like this.

I have braided Wisteria (& a butterfly bush that didn't work). It should be fine if you can get all 3 to grow at the same rate to 4 or 5 feet tall & then let the tops spread out (pick the sprouts off the trunks so they stay bare & so you can see the braid). If they fuse, it's a natural graft but they will still look braided even after they grow together. You could still chop the tops to bring them in if you live in a cold zone & not lose the braid.

Linda

I have several that are NOIDS that are 3' tall and thin enough to brade.. I have them all in a pot and they are putting on new growth...I think it is 2 orange and a yellow

I was going to try this - it is suggested on another site, ABADs? Can't remember.

My problem was - when the Yellow, White and Pink arrived - the Pinks were only a variety that grows 4' tall. My plan had been thwarted! (grin)

I'm gonna try it next yesr with some in the ground.

This sounds like a fun thing to try. I have some seedlings from Monster White, I can experiment braiding with those and I think I will plant some of my cuttings in a whiskey barrel like Jack did---beautiful!! Please keep the pictures coming of progress.
Thanks for the bump! :)

Daisy:

Braiding: I was so looking forward to doing that. Now I can.

I'm so very excited.

I'm going to strap 3 together at the base and then use flexible gardening tape to gently hold them together as they grow.

As some suggested - it's possible they may grow together! And have one trunk eventually. How neat would that be!

Of course - Daisy - did you see the grafting post? Graft the different colors onto a very robust plant! Get yourself a EquadorianGrimaliJamaicanFrosty!

So many wonderful ideas! It's going to be a looooooooong winter. . . .

We braided a few several years ago. First select brugs that grow about the same rate and growing conditions. Yes, these will fuse together and if one dies you can have a mess on your hands. Ours lasted 3 years before we culled it as we didn't find it was pretty at all.

Wow - sorry to hear that Karma.

That would be a mess, wouldn't it. Trying to make sure the "dead" one didn't start some rotting process.

I still think I'd like to try it - just once - to see.

Karma, any pics of your braided one?

Well I did try this out. I initially braided together an Insignis Pink, Super Nova, and Charles Grimaldi. This was dumb because the I. pink and CG quickly outgrew Super Nova. Super Nova hated being crowded with the other two. The other two didn't seem to mind but then the cat went and broke off CG! LOL, so I ended up with them at staggering heights.

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The first photo was from the first year I tried this. I started out with skinny green sucker cuttings (below the Y) so they would grow tall and straight.

The next 2 photos are from the second year. The I. pink is the tallest and did make its Y and finally flowered at around 4 ft. The CG is the 2nd tallest and even though it got broke, it outgrew the Super Nova (the shortest one) I wanted them to get taller than that before they flowered!! LOL! I kept them in a smaller pot on purpose to make them grow tall and skinny. I didn't feed them any bloom boosters or anything that would make them flower.

What I learned:
-If you try this, use something like I. pink or a suav pink, CG, and a suav. white. Use different colors of the same kinds of brugs. They will grow at the same rate and will be more likely to flower at the same time.
-I used velcro ties (and tied loosely) because the other things I tried caused rubbing and injury to the stems.
-I found out that you can do all kinds of things to the roots, like dig one out and replace it with another (as in the case of CG -being broke by the cat)
-They will continually keep trying to put out suckers that you have to keep cutting off.
-I think next time I will do it in the ground with some type of restriction around their roots~it takes too long otherwise.
-Do not let them freeze to the ground or you will have to start over LOL!
-And most important! keep the cats away from the brugs lol.

* This was a fun experiment but this summer I got disgusted with the whole thing and decided I would start over again with the above mentioned three. I am also starting some doubles to braid as well.
~SJN

SJN,

That is incredible work! Braiding brugs to save on space; now I wonder whether has anyone tried bonsarising them? :P

zeta

well done SJN fab job. such a good feeling doing experiments...I love it. I braided a pink and a white abutilon and had in a lovely pot that I paid a squillion dollars for. when both flowere I took it out the front and put it on top of a large gum tree stump which we had had removed due to safety reasons....anyway the long and the short of this story is that it was stolen....I truly wept 2 seasons of work plucked from me. People had actually been stopping their dog walking to chat about it....but I cant imagine a doggie person doing that. I reckon it was one of the health and fitness no dog nose stuck up in the air walkers who stole it...sob sob....still makes me sad.

Theres a brugmansia at the fisherman's wharf in San Francisco, CA that has been trained as a vine growing along a pedestrian bridge, so as you walk underneath the brige past the many shops, you can glance up and see all the blooms hanging down over your head. kind of like the picture from the gardens in tokyo posted above. The bridge is pretty high so theres about 15 feet of trunk before the branching starts out.

Mine are all noids that I have no attachment to... I'm just excited to have 2 pots freed up...LOL
Chena

Hello...
My name is Lynne and I'm at home in Knoxville, TN. I have been reading the brugs-Braids and found it facinating, because I ordered 2 set of 3-in-one from House of Wesley. What I got was 3-pink,white,yellow in one pot so I planted all 3 together. Now I'm wondering if this was the right thing to do? Any suggestions?
Lynne

You will eventually need a really big pot to grow three together. Something like a whiskey barrel I imagine. I saw those advertised and figured thats what they were.

If you are going to braid them, you need three that are compatable, like all sun lovers or all shade lovers. Then when one dies well you will find out it's not a good idea.

Hi lynne,
Are these your first brugs? If so, I would go ahead and repot them all seperately for now. Let them get some size on them and see if they all grow at about the same rates individually before trying to braid them or grow them all in the same pot. Braiding is fun but if these are your first brugs then you will have better results with individual plants while you are learning. If you need any help repotting etc. please feel free to email me at sultry_jasmine_nights@yahoo.com

For braiding you would need vigorous straight suckers from the mother plants anyhow, that did not come from above the Y. So if you wait you can get some off your individual plants later to braid.
~SJN

Hi Group...
And, thanks for the input, I read every post and was fascinatated by them all. SJN I found your post intriguing,
I have planted them outside facing the West and they are thriving great.
This is my 2 year with burgs, I planted yellow.white,pink last year and then when I saw the 3 in one. I thought it meant 3 colors on one stem. They are about 1 foot high now I think they are too tall to try and dig up and put into pots. The three I had last year did re-appear this year, so now I have quite a few going.Do you think I should try and braid one?

If you have the three close together and they are tall and straight, then sure, go ahead and try it. Tie them loosely and sort of coax them together a little at a time so you don't break the stems. As they grow, take off any suckers or branches that appear below the main growing tip.

Don't feed them any bloom booster because they might Y and that will be as tall as they get without branching all over.

Remember, in the winter you will prob. need to bring them inside or protect them somehow because if they freeze to the ground you will have to start over next year.

good luck :)

SJN, think I'll try it too. Got plenty of NOIDS laying around.