Hi Fran, these are great pictures of your wsing success. Love the broken colors....guess they really are. I also love what you did with the bird bath...too cute.
Bonny

I am totally impressed with those 4 oclocks - mine are puny next to yours. Thanks for the great pics

Carrie

Bonny, that birdbath is plastic and been with me for 27 years. I used it for the birds till the winter of 2001-2002. That year we had a very warm Sept, Oct except for a few days and very warm early Nov., until the "rain storm" that was coming over night turned into 2 feet of snow. What a surprise we woke up to. There was no way to get the birdbath in the house from then on as it was frozen in the snow and full of ice. I figured it was better to take my chances with it in the snow, then try to dig it out and hope for the best. In the spring, well you can imagine the cracks in the bowl. Tried to duck tape it with white duck tape, but it wouldn't hold water. So moved it to between my 2 hydrangeas and started doing what my grandmother did with some of hers. Filled it with soil and put small plants in it ever since. It does come inside in the fall and gets a new "tape job" every spring. It's holding so far, but every year it gets a little more and more damaged. I wish I could get another one like it but have never seen one since I bought that one.

Carrie, I've got small sickly looking 4 o'clocks too. For some reason I can never get them to grow well for me in the ground, so started putting them in pots filled with miracle grow potting mix and you see what the results are.

When I was a kid, I remember by brother helping grandma plant her 4 o'clock seeds in the ground. OMG, she would have these huge, huge bushes of them all over the gardens and the scent would come in the house. We lived at the beach and she had a huge bucket filled with sand from the beach she used to make a bed of beach type plants. Well, my brother dropped a 4 o'clock seed in the sand and no one knew about it. One day there was a green seedling in it and she left the seedling to see if it would grow. Sure enough seedling was a 4 o'clock growing in pure sand that salt water washed over. That one got huge too, growing in a whiskey barrel. I can't get them to grow well in my gardens unless they are in pots, and she got them to grow in beach sand.

I just wish the broken colors had a strong scent to go with the beautiful flowers. Even with a strong breeze there is no scent unless you put your nose right into the flowers.

Fran

Lovely pics. Fran. I have been growing balsam for a few years now and mine never come true to seed. I now get a lovely variety of pale pinks through purples - they really brighten up the back of my yard. Mine are the giant ones - grow to 5-6 feet. Still waiting for my 4 o'clocks to take off. I WS'd them for the first time this year, growing in the ground and still only 4-6 inches tall. Patience!! I don't know what mine are but those broken colours sure are interesting.