How to Plant Datura Seeds
Datura is a plant, native to India, that produces trumpet-shaped flowers. Datura comes in a variety of species, usually defined by the shape and color of their flowers and may return year after year if left in the ground. Datura seeds tolerate freezing well. In fact, this actually tends to increase their germination rate and speed significantly. Depending on the variety, datura may reach as high as 6 feet and bush out almost the same distance; take this into consideration when deciding where to plant. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Mix your datura seeds thoroughly with sand--enough to cover the seeds--and place them in a cardboard box in your freezer. This is called stratification and will help the seeds to germinate once they're sown.
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Leave the seed-sand mixture in your freezer--or outside, if temperatures are cold enough to freeze it solid--until you're ready to plant the seeds.
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Start your datura seeds indoors at any time by planting in a peat pot or other fiber pot that can then be planted directly into soil or, if you'd like to plant them directly outside, do so after all danger of frost has passed.
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Sow your datura seeds 3/4-inch deep. If you're sowing outside in the garden, select a place with good drainage and full sun and sow seeds between 24 and 36 inches apart. Keep the soil, whether in a pot or in the garden, slightly moist.
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Cover the soil, if you've planted datura outside, with a black plastic sheet. A garbage bag will work fine. This helps warm the soil and speed germination.
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Continue keeping soil moist until the datura seed germinates. This may happen in as few as 2 weeks or it might take as long as 8.
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Tips & Warnings
While some consider datura a challenging seed to start, warm, moist soil is the key. Starting your datura seeds in peat or fiber pots allows you to plant them directly into garden soil without transplanting; they don't respond well to transplants.
Datura is poisonous if eaten. Consider this when deciding where to plant it, and keep it well away from children and pets who may not understand the danger.
Comments
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BEWARE city gardeners! I loved Datura when it was only one large plant with beautiful glow-in-the-dark flowers with lemony scent. Now after about 6 years, our city government has banned it. As I have begun to dig it up (no herbicides in my garden) the "mother plant" main root is 2-4" in diameter with tentacles reaching 8-10 feet long! Along these tentacles are numerous other baby plants! Last year's plant stretched about 15-20 feet long and 4-7 feet wide. The blooms were magnificent (I'd say 200 or so) but each bloom forms a seed pod with another 100 seeds or so. Interestingly, Datura stems and roots smell like peanut butter when you crush/cut them, so I'm pretty sure that poses a danger to children in the garden and teens were also using it somehow to get high. Therefore, the ban. If you must plant Datura, I would recommend only doing so in a huge pot (the size of a whiskey barrel) so that it remains contained. I don't know if this will work, but if anyone gives it a try please post an article on ehow. Caution: Make sure you harvest and discard all the seed pods before they break open, or you will have more plants than you can imagine.
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I'm sorry but the instructions aren't clear. You have stated to put a plastic sheet over the soil. Is this after you have planted the seed? If so, that would take the sun out of the equation. Also, it is not clear how long the plastic sheeting should be covering the seed. Recently a friend gave me a large seed pod belonging to the "moon flower" datura bush. I was hoping to plant them directly in the ground. Is it really necessary to freeze them first?
