I am in Zone 7

yes they develop on their own...look for medevil looking spiked balls.

yes, they open on their own and reveal their seeds. They will hang there for a while waiting to fall.

You can remove them and plant in starter pots to make certain you get some for next year. They can be started about, oh, 6 weeks before you are ready to plant.

In my experience, you canput some in little pots of wet soil or peat and keep it damp untilyou see signs of life. Then, as it warms up they grow like weeds.

I believe they, like many others, need moisture and warmth.

I just ignore mine and they come back on their own.

I can't wait to hear what the folks who really know what they are doing advise
cynthia

I usually cut the seedpods off. After a couple of years the plant gets larger in its growing season and the limbs begin to be weighted down from the pods which can be quite heavy. I am not trying to propagate new ones however, like you. Even though I remove the pods religiously I usually miss some and get new sprouts every year. I had one show up in my compost pile this year.

Hmmm, I was just looking those up on google. Very pretty vine and flowers. Are they fragrant? I need to try to find some seeds of that to plant to go along with my other night blooming plants. It said to nick the edge with nail clippers and soak overnight in water before planting if that helps any.

They smell wonderful fool4flowers....once you grow them, you'll become adicted - lol
My hubby and kids look forward to them every year! I also get hummingbird moths and they love those too!

Thanks scuba-gal. I had a hummingbird moth swarm my head the other night, lol. I thought it was a bat at first then he stopped and fed at my blooming datura. It was fun to watch. Anyone want to trade some double yellow datura seeds for some moonflowers? They smell great too. They have round bumpy seed pods not the sharp spikey ones.

sorry, I thought you were talking about datura. I've had best success with the vining plant by treating the seeds like morning glories or bluebonnets...any hard seed.

Soak overnight, plant in peat that you keep moist and warm. They will grow! Once they get started, give a little nitrogen and plant them out.

cynthia

My bad too: I was thinking Datura as well! Nevermind! ;)

Fool4flowers, you said you googled them? It sounds like you meant 'Moonvine', which is in the Morning Glory family. I have those also & they do smell wonderful.
I also thought Bastari meant datura, from the seed pod description. I, too, cut off the pods because they come up by the dozens if I don't. I have to trim my datura by midsummer, because it gets all leggy & mis-shapen (?).

I googled moonflower vine. Is this the right thing. I believe it did say it was in the morning glory family. This is my first year to grow the datura and I have some moonflower seeds coming from a plant swap I hope. I only let a coule of pods stay on it and cut them off just as they begin to crack open I figure that way I can save some seeds in case I lose my plant this winter. I plan to do a couple of cutting also. The double yellow smells great at night and I sit and enjoy the fragrance while the dogs are doing their night time business out in the yard. I can't wait to get the moonflowers also. Does anyone know when the best time to start the seeds would be?