Tonny – You say on your web page that many of the daturas can be lifted in fall and stored over winter like dahlia tubers. I don’t do dahlias. I just dug two small datura meteloides plants and one larger one. They’ve been cut down by frost weeks ago but since the ground hasn’t frozen I decided to dig them up. Now what do I do? How should I store them? The roots aren’t as fleshy on the smaller plants like the big one. Will they hold out through the entire winter. I never have good luck storing roots or bulbs – they always dry out too much and don’t have any life left when it’s time to plant again. Maybe I should stick them in my refrigerator?
Tonny - Storing Datura roots?
No, no, no, - don`t stick them in your frigg, except when they have leaves or else the won`t match the tomatoes in color! (only joking *l*) If you aren`t good with Dahlias and bulbs just pot them and place in the window sill (if you have room to do with)and grow like any other houseplant. The leaves will be smaller and usually the buds fall off, but it will all come back, when you put it back in your garden.
Yes - I think my best bet would be to pot them. I'll put them under the lights with the brug babies. I might stick one of the smaller ones in the fridge... I have more room in there than under my lights! Thanks :)
Nother question. What is your favorite dat? I can't get over the all the different ones on your page.
Datura meteloides Dun in D.C. - dark violet branched form is my favorite #1. You should see it in bloom. The tube is slender (almost a dats version of versicolor) and the margin or skirt is just soooo broad, that I never saw anything like it (only in brugs cause *l*). It has also the finest small, dark leaves and its branches are dark purple to dark bluish purple. Which one do you like the most?
Oh NO! I just thought keeping in the fridge might be close to the enviroment they'd be in ... if I had mild winters like our southern friends. I dunno if would work. It does work with some bulbs. Too late anyhow. I just finished potting them up.
I haven't grow enough datura varieties to have favorite. I haven't been impressed with the double varieties I've tried. The flowers are pretty but too far and few between. Maybe my short season doesn't give them enough time to show off. A peeve of mine is the mis-IDing with seed companies. You must hybridize your dats too? Just curious. Do different species cross with one another?
I never felt it was necesarly to hybridize them. Every year beauties of D. inoxia/meteloides/wrightii enter my doorstep and I think there are maybe thousand different of them out there in the deserts still waiting to be discovered and piced :) All you find by me is natural, except for Ida, which i made by hybridize one arborea to another.
I don`t give much for misiding seed companies either. I get the impression, that they don`t know, what they are selling and that they don`t really care. That was initially why I made TDCI website. I wanted to make a name system, that all could live happy everafter with and so for once one person could talk dats with another without constantly be misunderstood. However, I am soon rewriting parts of it. I am quite happy with the arguments for the dats names and ranks, but even if most of my arguments for maintaining brugs as a section of Datura (section Brugmansia) I could as easy make as many profs, that they are a separat genus ;).
Thats the thing with science, that always intrigued me most. You can use it to prove virtually anything! One day fat is dangerous, the next you will die without. All scientific proven. Its a toy. - and an important toy, because if it is used seriously, it puts us in a position, where one person are able to understand another (If I said Pigæble would you know, what I mean by that? What if I said Jimsonweed? The science trick is, that we both know Datura stramonium *l*).
Sorry, if I sound lecturing ... I just got carried a little away :) Think I need some more of Lenes good, strong coffe *l*
Not lecturing Tonny, Eric calls it rambling. We don't much get tired of it here:)
Tonny
We always learn so much from yours and Eric's "ramblings". Keep up the good work and don't worry about boring us, we could talk brugs all day. BTW, where is Eric? I haven't heard much from him lately.
PoppySue- I think you just don't have enough growing time for the double Dats. I had as many as 30 blooms at once on my triple yellow and double purple. Very impressive and wonderful smelling. Granted, the blooms don't last as long as the Brugs but they are very pretty. Those that I want to winter over, I pot and keep in an unheated garage. It does have windows, but the light is not that much. I have one Dat that will be going on its' 3rd year if I decide to bring it in.
they like tons of fertilizer too. i had alot of blooms on mine last year. this year i had a golden queen that i totally ignored, had about 8 blooms altogther... i was made at it cause it was traded to me as a brug!
nefer, On your Datura that had 30 blooms at once, was it a new one that you grew from seed that year or was it a plant that you overwintered from a previous year? I grew several kinds last year incuding three different doubles and didn't have more than four flowers at one time on them. The only kind that did great was single white metel which had many blooms.I started these in the house last winter and they went into the greenhouse the end of Feb. and started blooming in there so that gave them a jumpstart on our short growing season but they still had few flowers.I had much better luck with a little FP rooted cutting that I received and had flowers on that with no problem.For some reason it seems Brugs do better in this part of the country than Daturas do.
Glory
Dec 10, 2001
Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the Dats prefer heat over cool?
Poppysue, as you live in zone 4 you properly have to jumpstart them indoors 2-3 months before you can put them into your garden. If you have a greenhouse, especially the metels will prefer to be inthere. All dats are heatloving species and under cooler climates they tend to grow slower and thus produce more flowers. A trick to overcome this is to plant them close in your garden. The plants will then grow a bit higher, and when they have gained some all the plants together will appear as if one large bush. Then, even if every plant only have 3-5 flowers open at the time. if will apper as a large bush with plenty of flowers :) I think I have a picture, where I use this effect and I think of uploading it into a journal, but I am not very good at these journal things, so maybe I put it in a thread inhere.
Datura is short-lasting, nocturnal flowers, that opens mid-evening and in warm sunny weather closes again the next morning. In cloudy, cool waether, the flowers I have had could last up to four days. Thats nothing for any brug, but for a dat it is a world class thing to do :)
Snowhermit-The triple yellow with the 30 blooms WAS one I had overwintered, but the double purple had almost that many and I started it from seed that year in the house. Another purple didn't have quite that many but was a good bloomer, too. In my experience, certainly not as extensive as Tonny's, Dats do like heat, but only up to a point. When it gets really hot here, high 90s, 100s, they wilt in full sun and slow down in growth and bloom. I grow mine in part shade and give them lots of water and fertlizer, water every day and sometimes more and fertilizer weekly. On some days that are overcast the blooms will last a couple of days or more. Yes, I started a Brug rooted cutting in march and it grew rapidly and was covered with blooms. If anything, it wanted even more water and fertilizer and definitely wanted shade. It is still trying to bloom, but so is a yellow Dat started from seed this year.
I envey you people that still have things growing in the ground. Right now it looks like winter wonderland here with 2 in. of snow that fell yesterday. It was 10 degrees out this morning so I think the snow will stay for awhile. Maybe our ground just isn't warm enough in the summer to have good blooms on the Datura.I never plant out until Memorial Day and even then have to watch for frost.
We got our first snow yesterday too :-[ It's late late this year. I usually start daturas about 8 weeks early. However I never have bothered to feed them much. I'll have to see if I get better results by pumping the fertilzer to them. Datura inoxia has always been the most generous with flowers for me. Even the self sown seedlings will put out lots of flowers. Had quite a few behind my compost heap this past summer!
Hey Tonny - I have some growth on one of the plants I dug up. Just a tiny bit of green pushing up through the soil at the base of the stalk. I thought for sure they were dead! At least one is alive - maybe the second will pull through too.
Sue,I had a dat that was growing in a large planter outside all summer,along came the frost and klled it so I figured it was dead.a month later I brought the planter inside to plant a fig in the container.The figs growing great and the datura is almost as big as the fig now,if not bigger.No blooms yet though.I have it in the woodstove room so its pretty warm....
okay, very glad I didn't hit 'skip to new reply' I didn't even realize at first this was an old thread. I missed something the first time. Tonny, you said Dats like cold treatment???? oh no, I have some soaking, how will they do?