On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 06:57:54 -0500, "Tony"
wrote:

Hi there,

I, too, live in Pensacola, FL.

I mainly reseed my Datura manually, but this year I noticed that I had
several volunteers popping up on their own in last year's beds. At this
point some of them are about .25" to .5" tall. The late freeze we took in
my part of town a few weeks ago probably delayed their start. Mine have
come up within the past 2 weeks.

One thing I do to help them out is save 2 liter bottles and cut off the
bottoms. I remove the tops and slide them over a new seedling. This
creates a mini-greenhouse for them that seems to hasten their growth.

The ones that I germinated in small pots in a mini-greenhouse I have (from
Big Lots) are about 4" tall now.

Our climate here is great for these plants. You've just got to be careful
about tomato hornworms! They devoured several of my plants last year in
their entirety before I was able to spray them with BT.

If you're into Brugmansias in this area, there's a lady that has a small
commercial greehouse near her home off 9 Mile Road (near Beulah airport) and
she has a wide variety of Brugs. Haven't had a chance to go see her this
crop this year, but at the Milton Flower Show last week she mentioned she
had some new varieties.

Tony



No fair! I missed the flower show. I love Brugmansias. I got one
last year. My back yard faces north and I have a large oak tree, I
planted it between the house and shade shadow of the tree. I has
grown and flowered beautifully but it is not the best spot for it
because it "leans" toward more sunlight. How much sunshine can they
handle and what would be the ideal setting for them? I want to get
more.

Do you remember the name of her greenhouse? Or could you give me
directions? I'd be coming up Pine Forest to Nine Mile Road.

None of my Datura have sprouted yet.:-( But when I was visiting
Maddie in Tennessee she shared some of her seeds with me. Is it too
late to start them this year?

zhan