I love plants with big leaves. I also loved scented plants and ones that self-seed, so you’ll understand how totally I love night-scented tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) because it happily fullfils all of the above.
By the way, don’t confuse night-scented tobacco with smoker’s tobacco (N. tabacum). This is a quite different animal and forbidden to home gardeners in Australia, being liable to excise tax.
It’s also almost certainly the biggest killer plant on the planet, though you can’t really blame the poor thing, only the deadly use to which humans put it.
Night-scented tobacco, on the other hand, is an ornamental, frost tender perennial easy to grow from seed as an annual. Clumps of huge (30-centimetre-long), oval shaped, apple green leaves spring up in early summer, from which the slightly furry flower stalks emerge.
These quickly grow to shoulder height, each carrying up to a couple of dozen plump, sticky buds, that shortly sprout glistening white flowers in the form of long tubes flaring at the tip into pointy little stars.
Flowers continue to appear from December until the first frost. This usually strikes us in late March or early April but as autumn hung on till late this year; I still have a few fragrant tobacco flowers dotted about.
They turn pale brown as they age and in the early stages I quite enjoy dead heading them to preserve the pristine white look. Left to themselves, the flowers produce small, crackly brown seed pods, each containing dozens or hundreds of tiny seeds for the wind to scatter about. Night-scented tobacco’s botanical name is misleading, as is so often the case, sigh. Sylvestris means woodland, implying the plant likes shade, but this is far from the case.
In my garden it never seeds prolifically and then only in sunny spots, often in cracks in paving and in pots. Its height makes it a useful back of the border plant and it looks pretty among modern bush roses, readily masking their slightly awkward shape.
Its height makes it a useful back of the border plant and it looks pretty among modern bush roses, readily masking their slightly awkward shape. I specially love it when plants pop up near the verandah, so we can enjoy the lovely scent that emanates at dusk.
I specially love it when plants pop up near the verandah, so we can enjoy the lovely scent that emanates at dusk. The tiny seeds can be surface-sown in October, once the danger of frost has passed. They’re not fussy as to soil, though compost and a few hits of Seasol never go amiss. They germinate readily, but seedlings are easily removed if you want to limit their numbers. There are a couple of other garden-worthy tobacco plants, both occasionally available in garden centres. Neither have any scent. N. langsdorfii is a rare treasure for lovers of green flowers, growing to about 50cm, gorgeous among plants with purple or scarlet blooms. N. alata hybrids are useful low bedding plants and come in fetching shades of green, crimson, pink and cream.
Night-scented tobacco seeds are available by mail order from Lambley Nursery, $4.25 per 200 seed packet, phone 03 5343 4303 or visit www.lambley.com.au/
