Brugmansia is a flower i associate with the accumulated heat of summer but here it is November and i've had a handful of blooms 6 nights in a row. I've been gathering them to hang so they inhale their narcotic breaths into a tray of fat. Enfleurageing their lemon meringue sweetness. This is the only way to capture this elusive fragrance. When the fat has absorbed all the intoxicating exhalations it can hold, it gets washed with perfumer's grade alcohol and viola, i have brugmansia in a bottle.
This process i started during summer when the whites bells would hang from the branches by the dozens. Then the earth turned. The shadows grew long like chilly fingers across the grass. Then it was the night before frost. Out comes the shovel and big bad bruggie gets moved into the glasshouse. He pouted for a week or so; all those roots disturbed. And i wondered if he would indeed be able to finish what he started to say, with those 30some immature buds..
He's still talking!
