Anywho, ya just gota love the diversification of color on these and lush green leaves. They are heat and drought tolerant, mainly bug resistant, though aphids like em and they may end up with a hole or two from leaf eaters, but i've never had a plant distroyed completely by any pest. they are shade and sun lovers can get to 8 ft tall in sunny spot, at least some of mine have. these i'm showing average about 4 ft in shade

I have seas of them. the batch here are from those under my giant crape myrtle they completely surround it, the first photo is just one section of right side of the tree looking toward the street. I have 2 more areas with them as well.

If your wondering about propagation these are easy, they seed abundantly, with big black handgrenade looking seeds.
to give you some idea, all of these plants you see and all the many, many, many, more you don't see here are from 3 parent plants.

Now for a cavalcade of color, i dont have any white ones, don't know why, just don't. The deep red is my favorite one, there are many more variations of color mixes, but those that haven't experienced should get the picture from these i think. they can be all varigated on one plant or a combination of solid and verigated with loads of variatons of amount of red or yellow combinations. As you can see if you look close at the photos, some have little red doodads and some yellow, on the end of piston or stamin whichever, not a plant expert, not sure why that is.

I'd be glad to send you some grenades from the multi colored ones and you can send me some whites, once they seedup. You can't really depend on seeds to be exactly the same, but i can send enough so that your sure not to end up with all solids. Tracing the plants, there are only 3 in that batch that are all solid, rest are all duo's or solids with duo's, so should be easy to get ya some combo plant seeds.
I'm going to take cutting of the deep red, that hasn't happened before, never had one that shade and can't count on it's seed to produce same color.

Anyone that is interested in them just holler at me and i'll keep a list of who wants some seeds, should be literally thousands, by summers end.

Rgds

Tater yes it's like trying to get rid of those purslanes or morning glory, it's a never ending seedling surprize, pull up 100 one day and 200 take their place. Well thats a bit of an exageration, but seems near the truth when your out there pulling em up. It is possible to reclaim garden space i did it with a marigold invasion, but it's work, work, work. I doubt i'll ever have the desire to get rid of any Timous approximatous (my botanical for 4 o'clocks)
,I keep thinking of new places to stick em.

I love four o'clocks!! Although not as spectacular as yours I have mixed colors in one bed and this year I planted white ones with moon flowers next to my front porch. I call this my night garden! Mine are just budding now....cant wait until they are all in full bloom.

well i suppose you could, but they get fairly large root tubers & taps Maybe in say, a 3 gallon or so would do ok. if in the same container as the others the 4 oclock will over shadow the moon, the glory will just use it as a trellis. Usually and i say usually, because they don't really follow rules, they need to get a ft or more tall before they start making blooms, but i've had late sprouters make blooms when 6 inches tall. I sorta think they start blooms by temperatures just like they open blooms in early evening mainly due to temperature, at least thats my theory.

They are Mirabilis jalapa

The plants last year never went over a foot tall so I decided to place the 4 tubers I found in a large pot on our deck. They are already over 2 foot tall and looking fantastic.

My question is that for the mixed colors I had last year, every single flower is yellow this year? Is this normal? Are they like hydrangeas that the soil can affect the color? Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks,

Jim

Another example is fish, experiments back in my College days, I worked for a tropical fish company so was an easy one to do. I had 2 1/2 gallon to 55 gallon to work with and all the filtering and air systems needed. Take a large variety (can be tropical like an oscar or local, perch bass from game and wildlife fishery)put into a small aquarium at birth and left there, it will only grow to a proportion of the environment it is in. You can leave it there indefinitely and it will stay a particular size it wont outgrow the aquarium, experiments result in different sizes, All spices don't, lets say get to 4 inches and then stop. Some get fairly large for the size of the aquarium however, none will get so large they can't swim around turn etc... You then can take it and put it in a larger environment it will then grow to a proportion to it, and so on, till it's normal growth expectancy is reached. I'm not sure if you can stunt ones growth if left for an extensive period in a small environment, I never tried that experiment. Keep in mind, I generalize, as I only did the experiment on 5 species, but results were conclusive. Therefore, you can theorize that it is true for all. However, theory and practical application/reality are 2 different animals, some things just wont follow the rules we make with our theories, especially if its just my theories. I got an A on the project, however one thing i didn't do, is research other experiments on the same process or related experiments on other species, but then It wasn't a thesis, was just an experiment, heh.

Hmm how did i end up talking fish in a plant forum.

Up here in the not-so-frozen North, I winter the 'megasweetspud' tubers indoors then plant in April on either side of my front door (southwest). Gotta love their generous flowering and tolerance of poor soil and drought. A wonderful 'plant for nerds' or beginners. I put a bunch in with my Nicotiana sylvestris for an interesting look and mix of perfumes. Yep, gotta love 'em!

As you may notice, i'm one that is a tad loose with botanicals.

And one with a bit of the myrtle blooms in front of the 4's closer up. The 4's are in full bloom now already harvested a bunch of seeds.

I've had some fall off when i water they arent attached well in the first place so dropping before they bloom is common. I may well have some that don't open, but there are so many plants, buds, blooms and seeds, it's hard for me to tell.

Mine bloom and seed to where you can pick seeds on a daily basis.

Last year I had white, red, pink and yellow mixed. When they reseeded they came out like the picture...all the red at one end then the yellow at the other end. In my other bed I have yellow at one end and pink at the other. No white in either bed.

Penny

Ron Layman
379 College park Court
Huntsville Al 35805

I've found a new fav saying and Four O'clocks are going to help me make it come true. It is
Love your neighbor, but don't pull down the hedge.
-Swiss proverb
Next year I intend to have a hedge of Four O'clocks!
Charlene

Thanks
Sandy

Full dark shade will stunt their growth and they bloom less and later then partial shade, best I've found is near full sun but a few hours of shadow helps, those in total full sun don't do as well as partial but still do better then full shade and partial shade .it's a photosynthesis thing.

SO - I planted them by my roses hoping to confuse them and use the four o clocks as a "trap crop". No such luck, the beetles found the roses anyway.

Four o clocks are just so easy and rewarding! I have to find the variegated ones this year. I only have magenta and yellow. Mostly yellow...

As for slugs i put out every killer known to kill them or attract them and drown them and it took months to eradicate them, they are the scourge of the earth, they as i said before , didn't bother the 4's at all though.

BUT if you live in the city like I did - I used diatomaceous earth then and it worked very well. Also works for earwigs.

Also I have heard crushed eggshells around the base of the plants works on slugs also.

KMK

It was really gross, I would cut flowers and check them out and put them in a vase, then later on I would find a few earwigs had fallen out of the flowers onto my tables. YUCK!!

It is sold at a nursery where I live but I think you could get it online somewhere - gardensalive? maybe? it is pretty common if you do a google search you might locate a place.

4 o'clocks are poisonous to a wide range of bugs including the japanese beetle which means every time you see holes appear on a 4 o'clock leaf that's one less bug that will be munching on your other plants. If the leaves start turning yellow just give them some iron and they perk right up. As for the tubers, they're virtually indistructable. My dad acidently roto-tilled a large tuber once and almost every piece of that tuber sprouted a new plant.
One color that hasn't been mentioned is what I like to call candy cane stripped. My aunt up in Maryland had her reds and whites cross and create white blooms with red strips on them.
Another plus to 4 o'clocks is that hummingbirds love them!

I read somewhere that to kill slugs you should spread some oat bran on and around your plants. The slugs die when the eat it.

For kwyet1 - the seeds take a long time, about two or three weeks to germinate. And that was even after soaking them in water all night!

Thanks again!!!

However, when the reseeds came up during the next few years, they were all multicolored striped!! I really enjoyed waiting for the reseeds to bloom to see what I had!

One thing I will say is that they can sometimes take a beating if you have strong summer storms. But on the plus side, they do manage to stand themselves back up again.

I'll let you guys know how they turn out later in the summer... Think I got the seeds for those at walmart!

Em

I have the perfect spot for them, too (I think). The side of my garage gets a lot of sun, but is just wasted space (the only thing there now are 4 large peonies). I want to try sunflowers, and was looking for something mid-range to balance everything out. The 4's sound like just the thing!

For those wondering, many plant books list them as annuals, however, i think those writers live up north, some list them as perennials, must be southern writers. Some sites list them both ways, but by definition they are true perennials. The largest plants with extremely thick stalks don't usually die back to ground level, about 2 inches of stalk normally remain. In the center of that remaining stalk is where new growth for the next year appears, not around it or near it, but within the stalk itself. When this occurs you can see for yourself proof positive, that it is regrowth not new growth from seed. Granted that does not occur where the ground freezes and it kills the roots/tubers,(normally below 20 degrees ground temp) but the plant is capable of regrowth, so it is a true perennial, it's just luck that it also seeds abundantly to make it a returning annual, in those areas of the country where the plant dies off year to year..

Note: you have to prepare for them, they can be invasive, so if you have a spot in your landscape that is barren, due to soil (drought and poor soil tolerant) or shade (shade tolerant)or what have you, pop in a few 4's. Do not put them in the middle of your garden, unless of course you want to make a no care plant a tending nightmare. To stop seeding you will have to dead head. The flowers last 2 days on average and they constantly make new buds, so for the most part, you would have to deadhead every day and that could well be hundreds of blooms. If you have a tall bushy plant your going to miss a few if you miss any, chances are the seeds will germinate. WELL, I could go on forever, but you get the picture, give them a space of their own. They do well in full shade, therefor you can put them around trees ( look back at the photo of the crepe Myrtle), they will multiply, but you just mow where you don't want them to be. You don't have to put fancy boarders around them, as they will cover them up anyway.

Transplanting is simple you don't need the whole tuber, just the better portion of it, many times even if it breaks of with just a bit of tuber left, it will recover. They will look sad for a long time, if allot of plant and very little tuber, some top leaves may die off and the rest stay droopy, but recovery is still possible. Shade doesn't deter them much, but they do get taller and fuller in sun. It dosen't normally affect blooming percentage, just size of plant. The more mature the plants are in shade the bigger they will eventually get, those from seed normally 2-3 ft is about all you can expect in full shade. IF grown in the same spot for years and never composted, mulched or fertilized you will need to help out the soil some. As with any long term growing in the same spot with same plant, some care is needed, you don't really need to do the same as crop rotation, but do need to help the soil. The same basic reason, certain plants use certain nutrients and deplete the soil of those, however with most flowering plants they normally all use the same nutrients and use them up much slower then veggies do. Also check the Ph if acid, for 4's add a bit of lime.

July, You can dig them anytime, heat will stress them a bit more, but should still do OK if watered in well and watered good for about 5 days. Spring is always best time to transplant most anything, but you can do them anytime, with a bit more fussing around with them.

Any advice very gratefully received. I just love these plants (particularly the white ones) and the fragrance is fantastic - reminds me of a friend´s very expensive Issey Miyake perfume!
Thanks
Almeria

As for saving seeds just keep them dry and basically airtight and they will last decades. For faster germination when planting soak them a day or so. As for saving tubers, just keep them cool and dry. Planting can do anytime after last frost. If another frost comes along you can just mulch them. You can also transplant them fairly easily when they are small. After they get tall the tubers will be rather large, so will have to dig a bit. When just a few inches high they are mostly tap root, and many times can just be pulled without even digging.

1) Should I store the seeds in the refrigerator for the winter?

2) After reading some of your posts, it is interesting to read that I can dig up the "tubers" in the fall. What exactly should I do, and when, and how do I store the tubers? I am new to gardening, and would love to save one of my Four O'Clocks, a yellow one which grew to be quite lovely. I started him from seed, and if I could keep him for next year, it would make me happy.

Thanks so much for your help and advice!

thanks,
ellen

Now as to an entire lawn of 4 oclocks, i've frankly never seen a field of them, so might be rather interesting to try. However be mighty hard to play football or baseball on the lawn.

I saved a ton of seeds from last year, when i get back from Alaska i'll be selling them on ebay as well. so will just name the photos the same as what used to be on here, so some will show up again.

The yard is over 2 acres so I'm pretty busy trying to improve the soil in the areas that will belong to more delicate plants. I'm hoping that 4 o'clocks reputation for being invasive means I can skimp a lot on the planting work as I need to plant about 400 feet of them plus a few strays here and there so preparing the soil properly would take a lot of time.

I have about 1200 seeds so I don't have to ration seeds and I am wondering if these plants are invasive enough that I can just poke them into the soil and have them come up through the grass. Am I asking too much or is this a reasonable expectation?

Also, if I plant them around an above ground swimming pool will they go sideways with their root system and damage the liner?

I guess the good news was that IIRC, they went for the leaves and not the flowers since the flowers tend to open during times of the day when JBs are not at their most active. I won't plant them near roses again because their scent probably attracts the JB monsters.

Trail, good luck with your garden! Did you know there's a moon garden forum here?

In my area (Maritime NW) I have never seen 4 O'clocks in the nurseries and big box stores. I'm speculating that's because most of their flowers are sold in bloom, and 4 O'clocks bloom when larger. They probably don't bloom in little 6-packs or even in 1-gallon containers. I'm guessing about that. Also, if the flowers are not reliably open when the stores are open, people might not buy them.

I bought seeds via the internet. Feeling nostalgic about gardening from my childhood, and these 4 O'clocks were part of that.

I grew some about 10 years ago and as I recall they did OK here. I'm more into gardening now than I was then, so maybe they'll grow better. Plus I have a deer and rabbit problem, and maybe they'll be resistant to those animals. Maybe.

I read start them 6 to 8 weeks indoors before the last frost, for cool climates like mine. They can also be planted in the ground, but maybe will start blooming later. A packet has plenty of sees, so I can try both.

Nice discussion! I've lost the experiences of older gardeners in my family, and it seems there aren't a lot of gardeners in my neighborhood, so it's up to me to discover what works and what doesn't. Pass-along plants like these are worth preserving for the next generation!

ken

Here's what the one I mentioned in my last post looked like this past September.

Marvel of Peru germinated about 1 out of 10 seeds. Marbles germinated about 1 out of 4 seeds. I planted lots of seeds so this is plenty of plants. Grew under lights a few weeks, now acclimating to outside. They are nice looking little plants. The stem coloration varies from yellowish to green to reddish. Interesting and fun.

Purpkeinopp those are really nice! I hope mine do half as well!

PNW is so diverse I find it unreliable for my specific area. There are some strong opinions, but 30 miles away and it changes. In the end, I need to give it a try and see what happens.

My favorite local nursery sold four o'clocks as plants one year as an experiment. They had them in 4" pots, one plant per pot. I don't know how many they grew but they had many left unsold in early July when they did their annual half-price sale. I had started four packets of seed and had maybe five plants to show for it. So I bought a bunch of plants. They were blooming in the 4" pots. But clearly not a popular item.

I am leaving mine in the ground this winter. I had some in containers. I'm storing those in the attached garage, which never freezes but is still cool.

Then again, I saved some seeds, and plan to plant those in the Spring too. Got my bases covered :-)

Bear has the right idea. Trim the top growth down to a short stump. If you do this first, the remaining steps are easier. Dig up the root ball from your four o'clocks and gently shake or brush the soil off the roots. Look for a gnarly black baby carrot connected to the stump. This is the part to save. If it froze, the root will be mushy and you won't be able to save it. If the root is firm, trim the thin threadlike roots away so all you have is the carrot-like part. The stump will dry out and fall off on its own later on, leaving a flat spot. Store the root where it won't ever freeze. I don't have a basement or garage so I stash mine in my living space. Include a label, and write yourself notes on the calendar to check the root periodically in late winter through early spring. Look at the flat spot on top. When you see pink nubs there, pot the root in your favored potting mix and give it water, food, and light. The roots will increase in size every year. Many people just save and start seeds instead. I save both, but prefer the bushy, earlier blooming plants I get from the roots.