For those of you growing 4 o'clocks in the south, please beware! They seed everywhere AND come back with a vengence! I once pulled a tuber that must have been 1 foot across and at least that deep. It took me a LONG time to get that sucker out of the ground-- it was forked worse than a crooked carrot! (I vividly remember landing on my butt after this episode, lol!)
The only one I've found to be super fragrant is a magenta color. It is now relagated to a wild area so that I don't (hopefully) have to keep after it! Does anyone have real experience with the other colors? I tried the 'broken colors' and was disappointed in scent throw.
Mirabilis (4 O'Clocks) Warning!
Violabird, I have an extremely fragrant white one that rarely makes seed. Is that unusual? It had two seeds this year. I wonder if it would root if I took a cutting?
Calalily ~ In your zone, it should come back from the roots if undisturbed. I have seen many different colors in zone 8 b that come back from the roots and have been given rootstock which transplanted well. Unlike Violabird, these haven't taken over. That would be a delightful switch. ;~} Pod
Podster, they never go dormant here, I was just wanting more of them! I'm not sure where it came from, it just came up in the garden.
I have a salmon one that does make seeds but hasn't been a problem so far. Its fragrant, but not as much as the white one.
There's another species of 4 o'clock besides the more commonly grown one called Mirabilis jalapa. It's named: M. longiflora and is native to Mexico, Arizona and Texas. According to Pizzetti and Cocker in Flowers, "...the flowers [are] very fragrant...opening in late afternoon...narrowly tubular, up to 6 inches long, wider at the mouth...pink to pinkish mauve or nearly white...Very free-flowering...Roots tuberous."
I would love to find seed of that one, and years ago J. L. Hudson Seedsman sold another species of 4 o'clock which I suspect might have been that one.
Anyone know of a source?
FlowerScent had them last year as plants, so I got one--the flowers were so dang tiny, I didn't like it. As for scent--just ok very mild. Glen listed his as Angel's Trumpets I believe.
I will try to remember to get a photo and compare the size with my salmon 4 o'clocks. The plant on this one is more "floppy" than the others and the fragrance is intense.
We have a wild vining 4 o'clock, it's white to pink with pinkish burgundy stripes. I can't remember if it was fragrant and its not flowering now. No seeds on it either.
For goodness sake - yes, they do come back, but certainly not to the point where they deserve a "warning". This is not an invasive plant.
These plants have been grown for years & years in nearly every zone without a problem. If you're concerned about them "taking over", just pull out the new seedlings.
I have had these for several years and I have not found them to be invasive. Mine does of course come back up each year from the tuber but I have only gotten a couple of new plants[which I wanted] around the mother plant. With the copious amt of seeds these make, I don't think they're invasive. Now Viola says they are for her, so she must have just the right growing conditions to make them go crazy. I wish I had that prob- as I love these plants!!
As far as which one's smell the best? I have found that of the 'colored' blooms, the pinks or fuschias smell the strongest. But I have to say that my solid white plant [that I did have] smelled much better than all of them!!! It was fabulous! Unfortunately that tuber died over the winter and I didn't get any this year. I think it rotted as it was in a very moist and shady spot. I'm trying to find the seeds for the white.
Berrygirl, if I can get another seed from my white one, I'll save it for you.
http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/ has seed of Mirabilis longiflora, as well as that of M. jalapa and a third species. My nose is already twitching - will order, try and report back - it'll be interesting to see if the funnels are as much as 6" or "little bitty things."
I hope none of us ever become intimidated into being less spontaneous with our personal experiences, ideas and happiness with flowers because of pejorative posts. Isn't this what Dave's Garden is all about?
Cala,
Thanks for the kind offer but I think I'm just gonna order a pack from Hudson, and I now noticed that blue is as well.
Blue,
I hear ya!
Berrygirl, we will have to compare blooms and see if they're the same! I have no idea which mirabilis this one is, but I love the fragrance. It also had the good sense to come up in the garden beside my front door!
Elaine,
I had a small piece of a tuber that broke off of a plant that I dug up, so I just potted it up to see how it would grow. It did OK but I'm sure would have been better in the ground. These things can get huge- the plants that is- and also the tubers get very big and heavy.
What size and type containers will they be growing in?
I'm not sure. The plants do tend to get tall and can flop over. I'm wondering if a plastic pot would fall over. The square/rectangular shapes tend not to fall over like the round pots do. Yours growing from seed their first year may not get that big, so 18'' might be OK for their first growing season. It's been a long time since I grew any from seed and can't remember how big they get their first summer.
Hopefully someone else will pipe in with better advice. Sorry I wasn't much help.
Last year, I planted a floppy, loose creeping white torenia in the same pot with a curly, "mossy" parsley. Both did very well. The pot was wide, but low enough for Mrs. Rabbit to nibble the parsley, but am thinking perhaps the torenia fooled her, and the parsley thickened up the torenia.
So, since 4 o'clocks do tend to be kind of "open", how 'bout putting a summer bulb in the same pot with a 4 o'clock? I'll bet tuberose would smell absolutely heavenly, and an early start in the pot would ensure blooms, after which you could just sow the 4 o'clock seeds directly on top of the pot.
Now, what other combinations of loose, floppy plant with fragrant summer bulb can we think of here?
Pretty , yes, invasive, double yes, at least here they are..
Larkie
Elaine,
I think that's wise on your part since you haven't grown it before and don't know how it will behave in your area. I will be waiting eagerly for pics and info from you. I would like to see the look on your face when you smell them for the first time! I think it must be the warmer clime y'all have b/c I don't think many of us more Northernly Southerners have a problem with it getting out of hand. I wish mine would- LOL.
Toward the fall start looking for little round black balls about the size of a BB. They'll be very easy to see and will be located where the spent blooms were. You can collect them to avoid re-seeding on the ground around your planters.
Elaine, I don't find the plant it self to be invasive its the seeds that it produces in mass! At least M. jalapa, I have not had M. longiflora.
When I was younger I remember my Mom vaccuuming the garden. I just thought she was crazy! She said she was picking up seeds. I wondered why she didnt just use her hand. Now that I have four o'clocks I understand. the seeds this plant produces it just nuts! They are everywhere. To contain mine I check it everyday for seeds.
Also Here in LA. we have hummingbird moths that love my Mirabilis, does anyone else have them?
Do you mean those cute little, fuzzy imposters of the hummer? Yup, got 'em up here. We call them hawk moths. Ironically, the first place DH and I ever saw one was not in our garden, but in a public garden north of us - Longwood Gardens in Kensington Square, Pennsylvania in a zinnia.
It wasn't until years after that that Dad told me that his mother did grow one flower: the 4 o'clock. Keeping a big family and farm going in the late 1800s into the early 20th century in North Carolina didn't leave her time for anything else "for pretty".
Well, Woodspirit is rooting a white flowered buddleia for me, which I hope to grow like a standard and grow white 4 o'clocks (seed from MollyMc) in a mob beneath it. To make a standard out of a woody plant (nice for small spaces), nip off side shoots from a main trunk that you select and train upward. When that "main trunk" reaches about 3' or 4', let it bush out there into a sphere that you nip back from time to time to keep it bushy.
I hope those 4 o'clocks self-sow themselves silly. The whole business will be in the center of a larger flower garden, and a nice foil to unsprayed, scruffy shrub roses in August. The roses also have their respective "mobs" of flowers and herbs beneath them with more respectible August flowers and foliage.
I think that any garden sporting hummingbird moths has gotta be doing something right :-)
This message was edited Jan 8, 2006 1:39 PM
I read that Mirabalis help keep the japanese beetles away. Anyone have any experience/comments
on this? I ordered some seed to plant around my roses hoping it'd be true.
I've always had a few hummingird moths around here. I think they are from those ugly tomato hornworms
though. True?
I dont know about the horn worms but I have never seen a Japanese beetle in my garden. Myabe its true? Annyone know?
Well, I will certainly find out next summer.
In the meantime, the denuded, long espaliered rose canes make a give a lacy architectural quality to the "floral fodder" (Russell page coined a phrase something like that - I think it was "floral hay" - y'all must read his book "The Education of a Gardener").
And I spend some summer twilights with a coffee can of water with dish detergent floating on top. I pick the beetles off the rose bushes and drown them in that. Keep a lid handy.
Tammy, DH just unsnarled my zoological nomenclature: The hummingbird moth is called a "hawk moth" and - you're right - the sphinx moth is the adult stage of the green tomato hornworm that we all hope to see covered in those little, white eggs that are laid by a predacious wasp.
I hear that members of the carrot (like bronze fennel, parsley, rue (who knew?), queen anne's lace, etc.) and daisy/sunflower groups are nice to have around as hosts for predacious wasps.
Well, gonna go back and edit that post. Thank you for setting me straight.
Still hope to hear from someone for whom companion planting 4 o'clocks with roses has repelled Japanese beetles???
I can answer that question. NOT TRUE.
They ate my 4's as well as the rest of my flowers, if they died after eating the 4s I didn't notice, I had plenty. Milky Spore Disease is your best defense as I understand it. I placed it years ago on the east side of my place and didn't have damage on my long slope.
2 summers ago I had most of my front yard redone (major) and didn't redo the MSD, I could tell :( I HATE JB's!!
Thanks for supporting my warning Larkie! Who in the heck wants to pick up all those seeds? I don't want to vacumn up my mulch too.
Viola, well how grrrrrful - Japanese beetles eating the 4 o'clocks along with the roses. Yuck.
Larkie and Viola, I wonder if anyone has thought about vacuuming those #** Japanese beetles off the rose bushes, etc? And then feeding them to chickens? Well, since this is a forum about fragrant plants, I should bite my tongue - when's the last time anyone reading this got a whiff of a chicken coop?
I like the idea of using a vacuum cleaner to collect seeds - makes a lot of sense to me.
I have chickens and think its a splendid idea (to feed those nasty JB's to my lovely hens).
But then - LOL - how do you get the JBs to sit still for the chickens?
We don't have JB's down here, but in TN they ate my 4 o'clocks and everything else in sight.
Tammy, we have these in Jersey: Hummingbird Clearwing Moths http://www.cirrusimage.com/moths_hummingbird_clearwing.htm
Do they look like yours?
I love to watch them on the Buddleia and they look like a young Ruby throated hummer to me.
The caterpillars will eat your Viburnum not your tomatoes. :)
As Bluespiral says that's the Sphinx moth.
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/Pests/tomato.htm
And Bluespiral is always right!! ROFLMBO
np - your first link didn't work for me but the second one did lead to
a picture and that's it!
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/Pests/hummingb.htm
And Bluespiral - I read you put the JB's in a jar of water and then feed 'em to
the chickens. The chickens are fast so even if they/JB's are just a bit disoriented
from the dowsing, the chickens will get 'em.
Tam
They also eat on my 4 O'clocks..Maybe it's a southern thing..lol
Larkie
Larkie - the chickens eat on your 4 o'clocks too? inquiring minds want to know???
LOL I think Bluespiral is spiralling on us!
They eat the seeds and plant them all over, lol..
Larkie