• 2024-08-20

Tall White Nicotania

Last year I purchased a few Nicotania bedding plants, wanting them to fill in some bare spots left by spring bulb foliage dying back. They survived but I wasn’t really satisfied with them so I purchased some seed and started them myself, indoors, in the spring. Nictoania seeds are tiny and need light to germinate, so I just sprinkled them, like pepper, on the surface of a cell pack and misted daily. They sprouted readily and soon formed a thick mat of mossy green. Then I started pricking away baby plants, every week, from each cell so that by late May I had six cells with two plants each.

I planted them out in four different spots and have found it interesting to note that the two in one spot have yet to send up a flower spike, the two in a different spot have flower spikes about 180 cm high, and the plants in the other two areas are somewhere in between – flower spikes, but not nearly as high. I also was fascinated with how huge the basal leaves were and had to remember that they were Nicotania, not the biennial Verbascum thapsus, the mullein that grows readily around here.Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is how, in certain light, the backside of the flowers have an intriguing bluish tinge.

One of the reasons I wanted to have these in my garden is their purported fragrance – which I have yet to notice – and their rumoured attractiveness to sphinx moths…aka hawk moth, and I’ve seen one of those sipping from nearby Verbena bonariensis. Not the Nicotania.It is quite a gorgeous plant though – the crown of flowers at the top will likely bloom for a long time, and given the variation in growth rates I’ll likely have flowers right through to October frost.