A couple of new plants

This year we have grown some Castor Beans and three Brugmansia.

Both are, of course, quite dramatic plants that from a sheer vigour standpoint make them quite interesting.

The Castor Bean is one called 'Impala', a hybrid which doesn't get quite as gigantic as typical castor beans, but the foliage is a wonderful burgundy colour. The seeds came from Dominion Seed House.

The new leaves start off very shiny, and almost red. They age through a wonderful metallic tone(which I am not sure I have fully captured) to almost green at the finish.

The veins and petioles stay quite vibrant.

We were quite surprised to see the start of a flower a week or so ago. Past experience with this plant had been to have flowers develop very late in the season, and never really make it to the ripe seed state.

The one in these pics is growing in a big pot on the back steps, so it it the barometer. It is, no doubt, beginning to outgrow its space, but hopefully won't go downhill too much. A couple of others are out in the Oak and Claymore beds. They haven't received much special attention, but since that long dry spell ended seem to have caught up a bit.

The Brugmansia also were ordered from Dominion Seed and came as quite nice plants in three inch pots. They were described as Salmon, with no specific variety name.

They were potted up in two gallon pots, and didn't look back! It was quite amazing how fast they grew. Buds appeared at what I thought was quite an early stage, the plants were still quite stocky, and the emerging flower essentially 'dragged" on the edge of the pot.

We have removed some of the shoots that arose from the more basal parts of the plants to give them a bit more of a trunk.

They have since gained some height, so the blossoms have a bit more room . All three plants seemed to outgrow those two gallon pots, so they all were potted "up" to bigger ones. I'm not sure they fully appreciated that move, as a few lower leaves seemed to yellow a bit, but growth proceeded, and many new buds have formed, and flowers opened.

The flower buds are very long, and quite yellow to start, but as the flower opens the pinky-salmon shade comes through.

It would be a distinct advantage to have much taller plants so one could view the underside of the blooms without going through contortions.

A few were treated as cuttings, but we haven't checked them in a while to see if they have rooted. Some of the shoots were simply discarded. How many Brugmansia does one need? A white one would be nice though.