Garden and Flowers

FLOWERING TOBACCO

The sturdy stems of flowering tobacco usually grow to about 5 ft tall in a single season, but they do need time to achieve that. Even if they are sown indoors in early spring, they will not come into flower before the end of July. The plants are sensitive to cold in spring, and should not be put out-of-doors - either in the garden or in a large container - before June. If the seed is sown outdoors at the end of May, the plants will not come into flower until late August. It is possible, however, to overwinter the plants indoors. The temperature must not drop below 23 °F. In spring, the plants will sprout again and come into flower earlier.

Flowering tobacco likes nutritive soil and will achieve impressive dimensions in it: height up to 8 ft, leaves up to 24 in long, and flowers with tubes 4 in long. As well as liking food and moisture, flowering tobacco prefers shade to sunlight. In the shade its flowers remain open during the day. The real treat begins in the evening when they acquire the heavy scent of freesias and entice long-tongued moths to call on them. Flowering tobacco is splendid when grown as a single plant, and visitors will go on talking about it until far into the night.

Nicotiana sylvestris (Woodland Tobacco) is a plant native to South America, but sometimes grown in gardens for its coarse form and strongly scented flowers. The leaves are simple, with the blade partially surrounding the stem. Flowers are tubular, white, borne in large clusters above the foliage.

This plant is thought to be one of the parents of Nicotiana tabacum, the basis of most modern tobacco production. It is usually combined with Nicotiana rustica to lower the strength of N. rustica’s tobacco.