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nicotiana mutabilis
I was given some of these late in the season and they're obviously not going to get to flowering before the frosts. Are they annuals or tender/half hardy perennials? If I dig one up and bring it into a cold greenhouse might it survive long enough to give me some seed? or will I just have to buy a packet next year.
In the sticks near Peterborough
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They are half hardy annuals and I fear it's too late. Buy a packet next year. They are lovely.
Thanks B-L. I saw some in flower in a friend's garden today, I hadn't realised they were so special.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I have grown these plants for last several years, I have easily kept them overwinter in a cold greenhouse and last winter I left a container outside. With the mild winter they survived and are now aboutv7 feet tall and covered with many hundreds of flowers. This plant is now in my top three garden plants.
Note:- All my plants came from seeds harvested from my first plant and have noticed that there appears to be a large variation in form ie size and even absence of the basal rosette. The plants that appear to have no rosette but leaves growing along lower third of the stem tend to grow a lot taller.
Perennial then. I did wonder if they might be, so many nicotiana species are. My Nicotiana affinis overwintered this year, that's a first. N, sylvestris often overwinters but is later to flower than seed raised.
I didn't get round to getting seed of mutabilis. I'll have to remember next year.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I never knew that, I wonder if I can keep mine over, do you just cut the
m down?
I pulled the dead tops off at some point, 4 out of 10 or so regrew.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Thanks Nut.
Last year's from seed have come through the very mild winter without dying back
In the sticks near Peterborough
Oh, you are lucky, mine a couple of years ago didn't survive the Dordogne winter, colder than England. But, strange, have just looked it up and Sarah Raven, Crocus, T & M and Chiltern Seeds all class it as a half-hardy annual.
Hi B-L
I'm sure it's best to treat it as an annual most years. But that doesn't make it an annual. We barely had a winter here, a few flakes of snow and no prolonged frost.
Those companies probably class N affinis and sylvestris as annuals as well
In the sticks near Peterborough