Hello, I am somewhat new to gardening, and especially to Daturas. This is a picture of my first Datura from seeds purchased on e-bay. The plant seems very small for the huge flower that is forming. Is this normal? It is in a small (about 4") pot, and I am afraid to transplant it into a larger pot until after the flower blooms, but there is a second flower already starting to form. What should I do?
The flower has started to open. Here is one of the pictures that my DH just took.
Here is another.
And one more for tonight.
u are growing a Datura stramonium var tatula, commonly know as Datura Le Fleur. http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/48970/index.html
if u transplant in the ground, it will grow tall to nearly 5 ft tall if not more. if u keep in the pot, growth will be limited to 2-3 ft tall. do not worry about transplanting. the plant will not notice it all. btw... La Fleur is a prolific grower. u will have plenty more flowers if u cut off spent flower. my personal preference for the seed pod to grow is in late Oct. if u leave the spent flower on the plant, it will develop into seed pods therefore not as many bloom. it is ur choice. i am merely giving u info based on personal experience. hope that helps.
Thank you, MaVieRose. At this point, I am just growing them in pots. Yesterday, I transplanted a couple of smaller ones into 12" pots, and they appear to be unaffected by the process. I will re-pot this one as soon as the bloom starts to fade.
We bought our first house five months ago, and the yard was designed to be a low-maintenance xeriscape area. Therefore, our ground here is extremely unfriendly to plants. Also, the very high number of deer in the area, eat nearly everything that grows. Daturas are one of the few flowering plants that I can use here in abundance. The fact that they are absolutely gorgeous flowers and plants, is just a great bonus!
My front yard faces North-East, and gets several hours of morning sun. Will that provide enough exposure for them to grow out there? Throughout the winter, I have been growing lots of violas and petunias there with wonderful results - I am not sure if their light requirements are similar, or not.
Sheral
That is beautiful! I seem to be Datura seedling impaired :( How old is that plant? How long did it take to sprout?
Fish_knees, sorry, but since I am new to all of this, I am not as good at keeping track of things as the others on this forum, so I don't know exacly when I planted these seeds. They must have been planted about 3 months ago, and it took about 6 weeks for them to sprout, so this must be about 6 weeks old. I planted about 10 seeds to begin with (about half of them sprouted), and this is the first one to bloom for me, and it is much larger than any of the others.
They just seemed to sit there for a while without growing, and then I read on this forum about the Gibberellic Acid. My DH ordered some for me, and two days after I sprayed it, this bud appeared, and in two more days, it bloomed! I just thought that the GA would start the folliage growing again, but when the flower appeared, I started to worry that the plant could not sustain such a large bloom, and that perhaps I had not done the right thing with the GA.
This one plant seems to be the fastest growing and blooming one of the bunch (it has always been at least three times the size of any of the others), so I intend to collect the seeds from it later, and continue growing them.
I have several other different kind of Datura seeds that I planted a couple of weeks ago, and they are already beginning to pop up, so I am thrilled beyond words. I have been using a liquid fertilizer called Sea Tea from Gardenville (sorry, I don't know how to place links yet, but a google search will find it). Most of my plants have been responding well to this combined with the 2-drops per gallon vitamin supplement that can be had at any store garden section.
Sheral
u're welcome Sheral.
something i forgot to mention. be careful of the seedpods, once ripe{brown in color seedpod} will burst and spread plants all over the yard. will take u yrs to get rid off. some people try to put a piece of old stockings to prevent seed dispersion.
also, each seed pod have a minimum of 100 seed in each seed pod. one of the few reason why i prefer to allow seed pods to develop late.
since u like Daturas, maybe u should also try D. metel - this specie comes in 3 different color; purple, yellow and white. D. metels produce bloom in single, double, triple or quadruple flowers. no assurance as to what each seed will produce on one specie.
Datura metel fastuosa is the purple variety
Datura metel "yellow queen" or chloranta is the yellow variety
Datura metel "alba" white variety.
do a search or check the PlantFiles to see the difference on the D. metels, plus this variety are fragrant too!
datura prefers warm or hot weather. u got the perfect setup. the very reason why others are having difficulty with their seeds during cooler temperature. datura requires night time temp of upper 60ish and daytime temp of upper 70ish for the seeds to become a seedling.
personally, i do not fertilizer datura, nor use any chemicals on them. i do a lot of research to let cultures of different plants i used to grow. u can right click on my name to see different thread i had posted.
sorry i wish i have seed i can share, unfortunately i do not have any at hand. maybe other who visit this forum got some to spare and share ??? when i had them, i gave them all away.
I have a good amount of seed from Purple Petticoats if you're interested. They seems to have a very good germination rate. I have over 50 seedlings potted up at the moment. Thankfully I'm going to a Round Up in May so they will find new homes!
A bloom from last year ~
Moby,
Would you have enough seed to share a few with me also? If so, what kind of envelope, size, etc. and how many stamps for return postage?
thanks,
Louise
Sure! I have plenty, but how many seeds do you generally trade? The seeds are small and I have those little ziplock bags so I think a standard SASE would be sufficient. I'm in the addy exchange.
I would only need about 20 seeds. I will send the SASE tomorrow.
thanks,
Louise
Wow, I love all of the great information that this forum exchanges. My first experience with Daturas was at the end of the season last year when I stumbled on one at a local nursery, and bought it. It was one of the deep purple and white varieties. I was hooked, even though it only lasted until the first freeze, I started to look into the daturas on the internet. That is how I found Dave's Garden, and immediately joined.
Moby, I would love some of your seeds. The only thing that I have to trade are some Hercules Calla lilly seedlings, or seeds. Actually, come to think of it, I do have some other large calla lilies (not Hercules) that have really outgrown their large pots, and could stand to be thinned. I can send you some nice sized healthy blooming plants. Of course, the Hercules are a bit more rare and perhaps more desireable. I just transferred five seedlings into larger pots. They are about 4" high now. Maybe I can get my DH to take a few pictures of each type, and see which you might prefer.
Please let me know how this trade thing works, I have never done it before.
Sheral
Here is a picture of the large calla lily plants that need to be thinned. As you can see, they are still managing to send up some lovely flowers.
Here are the five seedlings that I just re-potted. They are doing well, and should survive being mailed easily.
Sheral
Your plants look wonderful! But it's really not necessary ~ just a SASE would be fine. :) I'll let someone else explain the trading ~ http://davesgarden.com/trading/primer/
Way to go, Sheral! It's great to see something you plant from see bloom. Luv your Calla lilies.
:) Donna
