So, for those wondering. the unknown plant that I put a call out for is called Nicotiana langsdorfii. Thanks goes to my friend Hannah Zwartz, gardening extraordinaire!
Nicotiana langsdorfii
Funnily enough, this plant popped up near where the opium poppies popped up ~ was there once a narcotics garden here? What else might pop up??!!
Though in saying that, this particular variety of tobacco is more decorative than smoke-ative. Unlike my other tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum) that I actually did plant, looking glorious at the moment with it coming into flower..
If I actually had intentions of smoking the stuff I would nip that flower off and do some serious research on how I would cure it. To be honest, when I got the plant I thought that I could perhaps dry a few leaves and have a sneaky ciggy now and then (I’m an ex-smoker) but lo and behold it’s not as simple as that unless of course I wanted to poison myself. Without curing your tobacco the nicotine content in the leaves is so sky high you would make yourself seriously sick if you smoked them. We have a case here of my laziness ( I can’t be bothered curing etc) saving my health! But they (the leaves) do make a killer insecticide apparently. I learnt all this from the website here called Leaf Only.
Nicotiana tabacum
So at this stage I’m growing tobacco purely for interest/ornamental purposes, so it’s kind of cool that I have two varieties now!
Love it!! 😉