Over the centuries, humans have had a complex relationship with members of the tobacco\u2014Nicotiana\u2014family.\u00a0 We have praised them, vilified them, smoked some species, distilled others into insecticides and burned still others in various rituals.\u00a0 One thing is clear.\u00a0 When it comes to ornamental or flowering tobacco, there is much to praise and almost nothing to vilify.\u00a0 In fact, adding more flowering tobacco to our gardens would improve most of them.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Surgeon General has been telling us that we shouldn\u2019t smoke tobacco since 1964.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t ingest any part of the tobacco plant\u2014flowering or otherwise\u2014either, because all parts contain toxic alkaloids.\u00a0 This is something to remember if you have children or pets who relish putting anything and everything in their mouths.\u00a0 The flip side of this toxicity is that deer, rabbits and other scourges of the ornamental garden also avoid members of the tobacco family.\u00a0 Hummingbirds, butterflies and other pollinators can sip the flowers\u2019 nectar with impunity, however, making flowering tobaccos valuable additions to butterfly gardens.\u00a0 As if that weren\u2019t reason enough to grow them, flowering tobaccos flourish in partial shade, so you can save your sunny space for their nightshade family cousins, tomatoes.<\/p>\n
Probably the most common ornamental tobacco is a time-honored hybrid, Nicotiana x sanderae, a tender perennial that is generally grown as an annual and sold in the spring in seed form or as starter plants in cell packs.\u00a0 The flowers are star or trumpet-shaped, in colors ranging from white, through pale green to velvety pinks and reds, each with five petals that fuse into a long tube at the base.\u00a0 Traditional sanderae hybrids can grow up to four feet tall, but modern, compact forms generally top out at two feet.\u00a0 Older varieties, like the \u2018Cranberry Isles,\u2019 mix, are sweetly scented, releasing the most intense fragrance at night, a plus for gardeners who only see their gardens in the evenings during the work week.\u00a0 Some of the newer hybrids, while more manageable in size, lack fragrance.\u00a0 It pays to check the copy on the seed envelope or thrust your nose into one of the blooms in the cell pack.<\/p>\n
One of the parent species of the sanderae hybrids is winged tobacco or Nicotiana alata.\u00a0 These statuesque plants may top out at five feet under good conditions, which include loamy, moist, well-drained soil and partial shade.\u00a0 The species\u2019 flowers are white or greenish-white, though modern breeders have produced cultivars in other colors.\u00a0 At night, winged tobacco exudes an intoxicating scent, making varieties like \u2018Jasmine\u2019 perfect for moon gardens.\u00a0 In my dreams I can see a well-appointed terrace surrounded by plantings that include lots of pale-flowered winged tobacco.\u00a0 Of course the terrace is somewhere in the South of France rather than my home state of New Jersey, but that is another discussion\u2026<\/p>\n
One of the most appealing winged tobacco varieties I have seen is \u2018Mutabilis,\u2019 which means \u201cchangeable.\u201d\u00a0 This tall nicotiana features the typical five-petaled trumpet blooms.\u00a0 It earned the \u201cchangeable\u201d nickname by bearing white flowers that age gradually to pink.\u00a0 Multiple flowers bloom on each plant simultaneously, opening at different times and creating a beautiful picture when a single plant plays host to blossoms in colors ranging from white to deepest pink.<\/p>\n
When I visit botanical gardens I always see shooting stars or woodland tobacco\u2014Nicotiana sylvestris\u2014in display gardens.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see it nearly enough in home gardens.\u00a0 This might be because it is so tall, easily reaching four or five feet.\u00a0 The flowers steal the show, with narrow basal tubes that are about three inches long, flaring into white trumpets.\u00a0 Borne in clusters at the tops of the stems, the dramatic, intensely fragrant blooms arch dramatically, giving rise to the \u201cshooting stars\u201d nickname.\u00a0 The leaves are big, bold and green, so the stems never look awkward or gangly.\u00a0 Contented shooting stars will self seed, so you may be able to plant them once and enjoy them forever.\u00a0 Plant them in protected locations, as their height makes them vulnerable to storm damage.<\/p>\n
Suppose that you have been completely mesmerized by ads for the many heuchera or coral bell varieties with purple leaves.\u00a0 This condition has led you to buy a number of them and now you are wondering how to fit them gracefully into your partially shaded beds or containers.\u00a0 The answer is Langsdorf\u2019s tobacco or Nicotiana langsdorfii.\u00a0 This flowering tobacco bears masses of small, bell-shaped, chartreuse flowers on two to three foot stems.\u00a0 Planted amidst your bountiful array of heucheras, the chartreuse-flowered plants will harmonize perfectly with their purple-leafed companions.\u00a0 Your landscaping problem will be solved beautifully and knowledgeable garden visitors will praise your skill at plant pairing.<\/p>\n
Most garden centers will stock cell packs of winged tobacco hybrids this spring and the better ones may carry other nicotiana species.\u00a0 You can also find seeds for additional flowering tobacco species and varieties in the seed racks that are already up in many retail outlets.\u00a0 Since some varieties can be started indoors in advance of the last frost date, check the local garden center now.\u00a0 For a comprehensive line-up, go to Select Seeds, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076, (800) 684\u2014395, www.selectseeds.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the centuries, humans have had a complex relationship with members of the tobacco\u2014Nicotiana\u2014family.\u00a0 We have praised them, vilified them, smoked some species, distilled others into insecticides and burned still others in various rituals.\u00a0 One thing is clear.\u00a0 When it comes to ornamental or flowering tobacco, there is much to praise and almost nothing to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[1111,1110,828,1112,606,1113,1114,126],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-butterfly-plants","tag-flowering-tobacco","tag-hummingbird-plants","tag-moon-gardens","tag-nicotiana","tag-nightshade-family","tag-self-seeding-plants","tag-shade-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}