Heavenly Fragrance, Pretty Poison

Life is full of trade offs. We often put up with nuisances because they give us pleasure. Men often marry troublesome, labor intensive, high maintenance women because they are beautiful. The plant kingdom has it's share of prima donnas, too. Angel's Trumpet is one of them. Datura, or specifically, Brugmansia x candida is a member of the very large solanaceae family of plants that includes the tomato, various nightshades, brunsfelsia, petunias and wild tobacco. It's a very close relative of the Jimsom Weed, the "common name for a plant known botanically as Datura stramonium, which has been used as a medicine and intoxicant for centuries. The plant's main ingredients are the belladonna alkaloids atropine and scopolamine. Since Jimson weed is native to much of the U.S. (found locally in the high desert), it's most often used by young people in those areas unfamiliar (or familiar) with its reputation and unprepared for its side effects." Which are mostly bad. (Fast Facts, Do It Now Foundation) The cowboys didn't name it Loco Weed for nothin'!

If you have small children or puppies who like to taste anything and everything, don't plant Brugmansia until they get a little older and wiser. This is a plant to be appreciated for it's fabulousness. The night and morning perfume is euphoric, the large trumpet flowers, ridiculously baroque. The umbrella shape is perfect for a stunning focal point in your garden. Be prepared to tend to this beauty's every need and whim. This greedy angel loves water and food. It will have a tantrum, withering and dropping leaves, refusing to flower if you ignore it for long, making itself into a pathetic scraggly stick-like creature you'd rather yank from the garden than look at it another day. But if you lavish it with flower food, give it regular water and some shade in the hottest of months, you'll be positively giddy with the results on a hot summer, or November evening when you breathe in the intensely perfumed air provided your entire garden by Brugmansia.

Let's face it. We all have high maintenance friends or relatives.

But when you think about it, the ones who respond to your ministrations make life a little more lovely, a little more interesting, a little more beautiful.

Grow yourself a Brugmansia. Feed it often, give it sufficient water. Then breathe in it's perfume deeply at dusk, or early in the morning when you are out in the garden pulling a few weeds. It will make all that tending worth the effort.

Brugmansia is easy to propogate by either cuttings or seed. Allow the seed pods to mature on the tree, then plant in potting soil and keep moist. Plants will grow rapidly. Transfer to successively larger pots until ready to plant in the garden. Brugmansia will grow in pots with proper care.