I usually get clippings and let them soak in a cup of water to replant after the winter.

jhl654 - when I was in SC, I cut the Confederate Rose and brugs down to about 2 feet, put a ring of hog wire around them and filled it with pinestraw. I'd stick the cuttings in five-gallon pots out on the back porch (which I winterized with plastic every year) and by spring, they were rooted and ready to plant.

I did that with my confederate rose cuttings last year, because it dies back every year no matter what. I gave a lot of them away in the spring. The brugs I cut back to about 6 inches, filled a bucket with pine straw and turned it over on top of it. It took a long time to come back out this year, and didn't send up any root shoots, so it was just a bush. The tall one just shot up out of nowhere, but it never had any branches.

Very good way to winterize . You've taught me something new, I didn't know about the pine straw.

You really have to pack the pine straw down, but pine straw is the best mulch because its needles go every which way and nothing can get past them except water.

When I lived in NYC I had a large collection of brugs that I started from cuttings a collector gave me. I would grow them straight in the ground till first frost. Once their foliage was killed back by a light frost ( usually in November) I would cut them all down to the ground, leaving all the roots behind .

I'd let the cut ends dry on the trunks and then stick the trunks in buckets of water with a bubbler over the winter in a very cool room where they would remain rooting until last frost. Some of them would even try to bloom in just water over the winter. After last frost, I would chop off all the leggy growth and any buds and plant them back in the ground.

Brugmansia can take and love a ton of fertilizer. I get mine to bloom year around but using bloom booster alternated with other fertilizers and compost.