I had trouble finding Nicotiana ‘Whispers’ seeds last winter, so over the summer I tried out a couple of similar cultivars, including ‘Marshmallow’. I love tall nicotianas because they look so lovely anchoring the back of a flowerbed, and the hummingbirds are crazy about them.
There is some dispute about how tall ‘Marshmallow’ is supposed to grow. The promised heights range from 30 inches to 4 feet. Whatever. I just wanted my plants to grow, PERIOD. I sprouted a dozen ‘Marshmallow’ plants from seed in winter. They were easy to care for, looked healthy and seemed to adjust normally when I planted them in my flowerbeds in late May. Unfortunately that was the extent of their good behavior.
I planted 8 of them in the back row of one of my flowerbeds and 4 in a different bed. The group of 8 did nothing for 2 months, and I mean nothing. They didn’t get any wider or taller—they looked exactly the same as they did on the day I planted them. The other 4 got buried by some exuberant neighbors, so I kind of forgot about them.
Those 8 plants never bloomed. In fact it wasn’t until late August that they showed any sign of life at all. One of the plants started to spread a little and the leaves got bigger (the flower in the photo belongs to a rudbeckia that self-seeded in the bare spot):
At about the same time, one of the 4 plants in the other location managed to fight its way through the snarl of annuals, pop up above them, and bloom:
The flowers were similar in color to ‘Whispers’, but they were smaller and more down-facing. Compared to ‘Whispers’, it was a big disappointment.
For me, ‘Marshmallow’ was a bust. The search continues.