First brugmansia in my life germinated :))

Thanks Peter!
I put it into the shade (without having knowledge of their warm/cold preferences). Now it gets about 3 hours of sunshine before noon and it has recovered completely.
However, my two seeds germinated together, but the one planted directly out seems to be growing by the hour. Literally!

 

Angelina
They look super!! Ive just managed to propagate a brug sanguinea but I lost 3 out of the 4 seeds I had. I soaked them beforehand and removed the cork but i think three rotted. Im sure youll get great pleasure from watching those little fellas grow and grow and grow

 

My largest Brug is doing really well still, now pushing on for 5ft tall!!!! , very lush and green

 

Just had a look at my Brugs and I've found several flower buds developing and a few side shoots - Happy Days.....

 

Well at just over the 5ft mark my Brug has also started to 'fork' as well as producing its flower buds

 

This is my potted one, Bilbo (how envious I feel about yours budding!)




And here's the one I planted directly in the garden. It's about 1.2 m high already, but... no forking branches. Some atrocious animal has feasted on its leaves...

 

The two happen as part of the same act, so to speak. (Apologies if you already knew that)

Time to start on an over-feeding diet of Tomato fertilizer?

 

They're looking really good Angelina, well done

 

Hi Kristen no need to apologise , I thought they did (I'm sure Peters mentioned it at some point), but the buds were more obvious first and then a few days later the 'forking' became obvious too........thanks for tip on tomato food, time to stock up

 

NO sign of flower buds on ANY of mine......... and the ones in pots are bigger than the ones in the ground. I'll be lucky if I get ANY flowers!

 

My advice is not to buy the posh brands like Tomarite as I don't think there is any difference between them that will make a material improvement; either brand the Supermarket Own Brand, or worth having a look at the Chempak one. Unless my maths are rusty that seemed the cheapest to me, it makes a huge number of Litres of diluted solution. Its a bit more difficult to dissolve compared to the liquid ones but I just put a little water in the bucket/watering can and stir it vigorously and then fill the can up.

 

Don't worry - they will come. Keep feeding with high potash. I just buy Potassium Salts and add those to Miraclegrow. Its cheaper than Phostrogen and miles cheaper than liquid tomato feed.

Edit - Kristen you just crossed with me. I don't know Chempak, but I would agree with you, they are all simple inorganic chemicals that probably come from the same factory - so go on price, taking into account the percentage of active ingrediants - which is marked on the packet.

 

How much do you use and where do you get it Peter?

 

ChemPak are makers of specialist fertilizers for hobbyists (possibly for other market sectors too), so they have specialist things for Fuchsias, Orchids, etc. (but I expect you know that much)

T&M List of Chempak Products:
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/dispatcher?search=chempak&sortBy=score&page=all

As such I have always walked past their Tomato fertiliser assuming it specialist, and thus expensive.

1.2kg costs about £10 and makes 1,200 Litres of mix.

In 2009 I calculated these costs:

Suttons 900 litres for £6.95 = 0.77p / L
Tomorite 562 Litres for £13.25 = 2.36p / L
Doff 1,162 Litres for £4.99 = 0.43p / L

Chempak, at today's prices, is 1.2kg which makes 1,200 Litres for £10.00 = 0.8p / Litre - plus the benefit of the relatively "posh" micro-ingredients etc. that it contains

Alternatively there is their High Potash Feed (Chempak No 4):
0.8Kg makes 1,600L for £9 = 0.56p / Litre

(T&M discount 50%-ish if you buy 12-packs, and its similar on eBay, so should be available a lot cheaper than £10-per-pack)

Maybe I shouldn't walk past the Chempak aisle in future !!

 

I am going to copy a post made 5 years ago in reply to Roders who asked "Why is Tomorite so expensive" - I replied :-

Having posted the above, I have just visited my local Homebase and recorded the figures from all their fertilisers for sale. the columns below are, manufacturer, product, NPK ratio (see post above), and cost in £ per kilo of active ingredient. I have added the N, P and K together to give a total of active ingredients. The results are :=

Plant feed
JAB --------- Sulphate of Potash 1.3kg --- 0,0,48 ------ 3.67
JAB ----------Growmore - 4kg ------------ 7,7,7 ------- 4.75
Bayer --------Phostrogen - 1.25kg ------- 14,10,27 ---- 5.47
Bayer ------- Phostrogen - 2kg ---------- 14,10,27 ----- 5.87
Miraclegrow - all purpose - 2kg ----------- 24,8,16 ------ 6.24
Miraclegrow - all purpose - 1kg ----------- 24,8,16 ------ 7.27
JAB --------- Blood, fish and bone - 4kg -- 5,5,6.5 ------ 7.56
JAB --------- Sulphate of ammonia - 1kg -- 21,0,0 ----- 10.90
Westland ---- liquid - 2 litre -------------- 5,2.5,10 ---- 11.40
JAB ----------Bone meal - 4kg ------------ 3.5,7,0 ----- 11.88
Bio --------- Top rose - liquid - 1 litre ---- 5,6,12 ------ 13.00
Miraclegrow - slow release - 1 kg ----------18,9,11 ----- 13.13
Homebase --- tomato feed - liquid - 2 litre -3.9,2.6,7.7 -- 17.57
Levington --- Tomorite - liquid - l litre ----- 4,4.5,8 ------ 21.15
Miraclegrow - slow release tablets 165 g ---10,11,18 ----- 62.00
Miraclegrow - liquid feed - 0.57 litre ------ 12,4,8 -------- 73.03

Lawn feed - virtually all nitrogen.
Miraclegrow - lawn feed - liquid - 2 litre - 36,6,6 --- 8.32
Miraclegrow - lawn feed - liquid - 1 litre - 36,6,6 --- 10.40
Evergreen --- lawn feed - liquid - 1 litre - 24,0,0 --- 24.96
Evergreen --- lawn feed - spray - 100 cc 27,0,1 --- 213.93

You can pay anything from about £5 per kilo to over £200 per kilo. The choice is yours. Be aware that the NPK values differ. Some like the Sulphate of Potash are very specialised being pure potassium. You need to get the balance right for your purpose. The absolute NPK figures tell you how much the active ingredients cost you. But the balance between them tells you in what way they will help your plants to grow. There is probably no difference in cost betweeb N,P and K as chemicals, so the difference in price is due to solid/liquid, brand name and size of package. Overall Growmore came out as very good value, but it is not so easily dissolved in water. Phostrogen (high potassium)and MiracleGrow (balanced feed) are easily soluble, and come out as the best overall.

Roders the answer to your original question as why Tomerite so expensive, is that it is a liquid. You are mostly paying for water. Phostrogen is a quarter of the price, and just as good.

Catztail - Sulphate of Potash is sold alongside Miraclegrow and Phostrogen in similar packs in any garden centre or DIY shop. Because its level of Potassium is so high you only need to add a half or a quarter as much as Miraclegrow. Looking back at the figures Phostrogen is pretty cheap, and comparable to a Miraclegrow/Potash mix. But then you don't have to buy Miraclegrow - you can buy a cheaper one.

It might be worth redoing the figures for a few items based on what you can buy them for now. You know the price in pence per kilogram of total product. And the label tells you the percentage of active ingredients - so its easy to calculate the price per kilogram of active ingredient. My philosophy was to get a reasonably good base, such as Miraclegrow, that has all the other trace elements as well and then just add Potassium.