How to Grow Atropa Belladonna

Fill a small, sealable bottle with cold water and pour in your belladonna seeds. Store the water in the refrigerator and freshen the water every day for two weeks. This imitates the normal freeze/thaw cycle of winter, which causes germination.

Sow the cold-treated seeds in a seeding tray filled with damp sand. Store the seeds in a warm area (between 64 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit) in filtered sunlight. The seeds will germinate and form small sprouts within four weeks. Keep the sprouts consistently moist as they grow.

Mix 2 to 3 inches of organic compost, peat moss or humus into an area of your garden that receives about four hours of direct sunlight daily. Belladonna grows best in a well-draining, fertile and partly shaded area.

Transplant young belladonna sprouts outdoors in the spring, when all threat of frost has passed. If you are planting multiple sprouts, space them at least 18 inches apart.

Water the soil so that it is consistently moist but not forming puddles. Water whenever the top inch to 1 1/2 inches of soil feel dry to the touch. The plant does better being slightly dry than consistently wet.

Feed the belladonna with a balanced, liquid flower fertilizer per product instructions. Some of these products need application only once per year, while others will need to be applied three or four times. Stop feeding in early fall to allow the plant to go dormant. It will die off in the winter and return again in the spring.