Okay…this is a very excellent plant (some variation of the tobacco plant, I guess) with a gagillion purple trumpet flowers on it. Some sites say it’s an annual and some say it may seed. I’d sure like to see it again in my garden. Does anyone have any experience with it?
I currently have it in a giant 1.5 gal. coffee cup on my pic-a-nic table. How would I collect the seeds?
Thanks all!
That’s a big coffee cup!
My SIL had one planted in her patio flower bed. It did wonderfully in the heat we have here in Southern Nevada.
As far as the seed collection? I haven’t got a clue.
It’ll only seed if it’s female. So hope for the best…
where ya been K?
Workin’ my ass off, dude. I am on the very delicate tightrope between employment and living under the viaduct 
, so I’m helping out where I can until my company can place me on another account. I’m hopeful for an August 1st re-deployment, but that can go south in a heartbeat. So…I’m telecommuting to Ghana at 4 am every day…making friends and enemies along the way.
But when I come home from Africa, I hit the garden, which is shaping up nicely this year, if I do say so myself. I’ve created a shitload of new beds and trimmed and weeded and hauled and dug…I’m pooped.
This Tobaciana plant is gorgeous. Photo to come…
Here’s this groovy plant (along with some others…and the giant coffee cups. I feel like I’m at a freekin’ amusement park!).
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/karlen1956/album/576460762403457142
Link didn’t work for me.
Well, that’s because I’m an idiot and didn’t share. Try this: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/karlen1956/album/576460762403457142
I know it as nicotiana. Be aware that it can host tobacco mosaic virus, which can also affect your tomatoes. (I know you thought that tobacco and tomatoes could be cross-bred to make tomaccos, but no such luck.)
OHMYGOD…I think you’re right. The name was printed on the tub it came in and I pitched it. I knew it had something to do with my favorite bad habit. 
I don’t grow tomatoes, but thanks for the heads-up. I just hope I don’t get one of those big-ass tobacco bugs. I’ll have to sell the house.
By the way, these are supposed to be very fragrant. I haven’t noticed, but I can’t smell anything. I’ll have to ask my guests.
Traditionally fragrant – with a nice evening fragrance – but a lot of the modern cultivars aren’t particularly fragrant. I’ve bought it a half dozen times and have yet to get one that is, so I can’t be more specific than that – but if you bought seeds, you could probably read the fine print and find a fragrant variety.
BTW – the common name for nicotiana is “flowering tobacco.” The big annual do of the Garden Writers Association last year was at a public garden called Chanticleer, near Philly (well worth a visit) – so there’s a few hundred garden writers wandering around. You come down this hill and find a patch of a huge variety – 8 or 10’ high – and everyone tried to identify it, most of us never having seen the huge kind before. The funny part was everyone defaulted immediately to “flowering tobacco,” because none of us had a clue how to pronounce “nicotiana.” (Is it a “t” sound or a “sh” sound? Still don’t know, though I personally go for the “sh.”) [/way irrelevant anecdote]
ETA: it’s a member of the nightshade family, along with tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes – so the tobacco mosaic danger extends across all those plants.
They’re delicious-smelling (in general, so I’m assuming yours, too).
What exactly is this mosaic issue you speak of? I always thought mosaics were a GOOD thing!
It’s in it’s own giant coffee cup. Is there still a risk? (Man…no one remarked on my giant coffee cups. They’re too cute!!)
Very cute, indeed.
And don’t worry about the mosaic virus – I’ve never had a problem with it. Why people are concerned – it’s a virus, so occurs at the cellular level, and thus can’t be “cured” through chemical treatment, etc. – you have to destroy the plants.
They look like chamberpots
That is a really nice plant! We’re looking for something to spruce up our patio and something like that would look great.
My photographer friend uses the giant tea cups as a prop to put infants in to photograph them. They are adorable!
It’s easy to save the seed. Once the flowers drop, the seeds form in a pod where the flower was attached. They’re fairly big seeds, too (compared to say, lettuce…)
Having said that, if the variety you planted is an F1 hybrid, the plants you’ll get from the seed may or may not have any resemblence to the mommy.
That’s so freekin’ cute! Can you post a picture? Nothin’ like a baby in a tea cup.
Ok, I’m going to try that. So you’re not talking about the daily “dead heading” but like at the end of the season?
Check Walmart. I’ve never seen them there before but this is an “All American” seed winner for 2006, so I guess that’s why they’re out there. They had a gazillion of 'em.
