My mother had the same problem after planting those oh-so-pretty yellow evening primrose. She finally began offering some to everyone who visited. After a few years when she couldn't give them away any more, she began ripping them out. Good luck with those four o'clocks!

What a lot of work! My sympathies. Here in zone 6, I had read that they could be invasive, so I have grown them in containers in the summer. I've collected seed and grown them from seed every year and use them as an annual. I do enjoy their fragrance, but you are also correct that they are not the most attractive plant. I do enjoy the flowers when they are open. Especially Broken Colors, but mine seem to wait until 6 or 7pm. They are easy to grow from seed and easy to keep going from year to year with no cost.

no problem at all in z5 ... die to the ground around the first freeze ...

very easy to cull in early spring.. if the vermin dont make all the seed disappear first ...

try roundup at the 2 or 4 leaf stage.. and avoid the problem in late summer ...

ken

Ken - Do they come back in your zone in the spring from the original plant, or just provide new seedlings and the original plant is dead? I dug one tuber out today that looks like the biggest sweet potato I've ever seen.

Not seen them to be overly aggressive in my zone 7a NC garden either. They come back from seed but they are easily pulled out where they are not wanted.

scary plant

Only a problem where they are not killed by winter. They're a tender perennial.

the tuber fails when the ground freezes ...

so they come up from seed ... and never every seed... just enough to make me very happy ....

if you google it.. you will find that it is also called the marvel of peru ...

it fascinates me.. that a plant from peru.. is both an annual [for me] and a perennial for others.. and an invasive weed for others...

talk about covering all the options.. lol ... link below

did you know that most house plants.. that are able to thrive in the house [duh] are under-canopy plants from southern hemisphere rain forest type settings ... well that is probably an overstatement.. but the point ... is that we manipulate things to our advantage ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

You're scaring me. I finally, after attempting many times to get them started, got two plants this year and I can see the large black seeds all over the ground near them. I never could detect any scent at all which was disappointing.

I guess I will see what next year brings.

Glenda

I never smelled anything either. When I lived in MI I grew them no problem at all with no effort. Out of one pack of seeds I had almost all bloom they were pretty.

Now I tried them this past spring in NC. I was going to cover a hill in them. I planted probably 150-200 seeds of different varities. I got 2 to grow to 3-4 inches, and they died.

Weird.

I am going to try again this spring with the Limelight variety.

Danielle

I have 4 Limelight Rose tubers I'm going to dig up and store for the winter.

Danielle, I was looking forward to the light green foliage but mine didn't have any lighter foliage than Kaleidiscope variety. They were Burpee seeds. Don't know if anyone else sells Limelight seed. Wondering if it was because they weren't nearly in full sun. I'd have to guess that was the reason.

I had to get down to plant to smell flowers which was mostly when I was hand watering garden, sprinkling slug bait or weeding but I love the fragrance.

I had assumed all those "black bb's" would sprout and be killed off by mid-late Spring frost here in Zone 6.

When I read an earlier post that spelled out what Patlovesdirt has shown I got nervous about seedlings. In one back bed that's a 'free for all' I don't much care about pulling seedlings.

The bed in front of the house that's tiny is another story. I was on my knees the other day feeling around the dirt with my bare hands for the little "black bb's" to collect as many as I could but realized I'd probably been stepping on them all Summer and inadvertently sowing them for next year!

It's so rare to find something with flower power that deer, rabbits AND groundhogs don't eat that I considered Four O'clocks a major find this year.

I started them out for the season in pots but they kept falling over so I put them in ground. In July I left one tuber in pot that had snapped off at bottom of stem and it grew back! Just enough stem was left above soil to regrow, I guess. It has flower buds on it and I'm just waiting for killing frost to take out the tuber for next year.

Don't have any idea how to prepare and overwinter tubers but I keep reading "lift and store like Dahlias" so I'll look that up.

I'm still a little nervous about them popping up all over but I still need something with color the darn critters won't eat.

Hope the Limelight Rose comes out with lighter green foliage as shown in the photos next year if I plant in more sunlight. Since they grew and bloomed in lots of shade I'll still keep some back there for filler color.

I'll probably be swearing under my breath pulling up seedlings next year...LOL.

Here in central PA they are not a problem for me. I don't know if they come back from the tuber and/or the seeds, but I am glad they do. The plants are easily recognized and just need to be pulled out where they are not wanted.
Concerning fragrance, I have had them in the garden for years and never detected a scent, but others might.

Our favorites are the bright rose red, pink, and the mixed colors (on each flower).

Jane

Newbie - Ken Adrian responded that a freeze in his area (up yonder in the northland) will kill the whole plant, tuber and all, and he knows everything. (I just had a thought - if a freeze in the north will kill the tubers, wouldn't it also kill any seeds that dropped on the ground in the summer? So no fears about prolific reseeding?) Since they produce so many seeds and are so easy to grow from seed, you could skip digging up the tubers and just save the seeds for next year. I've got a million of the fushia seeds, by the way, (along with some good swampland in Florida, lol!) - be happy to mail some to you.

For you northerners there's evidently no problem, since winter takes care of their enthusiasm. In my case, this happened in a bed I'd neglected for a few years and is completely my fault, but I've been digging out these (huge) tubers for 3 days! Worst is I know for sure they've already dropped a bunch a seeds, so I'll be cursed again next year.

Oh, and the plant and seeds are poisonous.

Pat

I also have the lovely limelight four o clock, and because of our freezing temps in winter, I dig the tubers in fall, just like dahlias and replant in spring. Digging the tubers gives me alot nicer, larger, more floriferous plant the following year.
Don't have a problem with the seeds excessively starting up in spring.
Love using the yellow foliage in containers with purple wave petunias.
Flora

Never a problem with four o'clock "invasiveness" here.

I have Mirabilis longiflora growing in a small front yard bed, and it has long (up to 8 inch) tubular white flowers that are sweetly fragrant at night. The plant has reliably returned for about 6 years now. This spring I was digging in the bed to make space for cannas and inadvertently chopped through a jumbo potato-sized Mirabilis tuber. I thought it might be done for - instead it grew more vigorously than ever before and made a great, scented see-through plant with tons of flowers.

Easy to raise from seed; has not reseeded here.

The Limelight variety:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55401/

Everyone's pics show the bright green leaves. Maybe you got a bad batch of seeds?

I will order from another seed company for this variety though as you mentioned yours didnt get that nice color. As that is the reason I want to order it for some nice leaf variation color.

Danielle

I have several varieties of Four O'clocks. They don't come back from tubers here in South Jersey but do reseed a lot. I just pull out the ones I don't want. This year, I planted seeds for "Alba." a white variety and made it part of a moon garden around our patio. It is very pretty, with lots of flowers, though not fragrant like some other varieties.

Danielle, on Park Seed ($2.50) they say Limelight plants grow to 3' x 3' but on Specialty Perennials ($3.95) site they say plants grow to only 18" tall.

I'm confused...maybe Park Seed is reflecting "size at maturity" in zones 8-11.

I know my plants didn't get much over 18" but since they weren't in full sun the stalk laid on the ground reaching for sunlight.

Anyway, I'm going to order a new pack of seeds AND dig up the Limelight tubers I've got. I'm going to get that lighter foliage one way or another...LOL.

Pat, thanks so much for the seed offer :)...collecting the little black bb's from these plants is fun except I drop more than I catch when I tap or tip the flower cluster!

Leslie

Zone 5 New England checking in...

The original post does not apply to my area. They are lovely annuals that- when planted several near each other- form a lovely annual shrubby-looking thing covered in blooms. Yes, they form big ol tubers, but I do remove & replant each year.

Invasive, alien? Nope, not here.

I have what I have been told is a wild 4 o'clock. It is a long skinny stalk with nice fushia blooms. No fragrance that I can detect. Seems to be a very hard perennial here with a long thin tap root. I've never paid any attention to what the seeds look like. I've been working for years to try to control the population. The bees seem to like them so I let a few grow.

I have some seed that were sent to me soaking. I'll probably regret that I planted them but I'll put one or two of each of the 3 colors in a large pot and see what happens.

I love them

Lots of them !!!!!

Yes! Terrible pest in Northern California!

I bought my house 34 years ago and the modest garden included four o’clocks I have been trying to eradicate them ever since. The tubers are the size of large sweet potatoes and even a small piece left behind will sprout and grow. They are beautiful and fragrant but take over

11 years later, and the original pics are no longer available... There are probably newer discussions about 4'o'clocks.

They can get 5 feet tall here, at least.

Anything that grows a tuber is super-easy to remove, just remove the tuber. Or just pour boiling water on it. Plants that have fine roots that are impossible to chase through the soil so they can be removed - are hard to remove.