Jackie, I'm more in the neat and tidy camp, but I love your uninhibited garden! People like us secretly envy your way but don't have the courage to "let go". We need you to show us how and tell us it's okay. I'm sure children absolutely love your garden.

Ingrid

Sorry, Jackie - I know they are pretty but they are absolutely indestructible, and I would never introduce them to my garden!

I worked with my husband to lead an effort with his bike group to plant native plants along a very desolate, weed-infested connector to the Sacramento Northern bike trail some years ago. We wanted to make it more inviting so bikers and walkers would use it, not just the homeless who head between downtown services and camping areas along the river.

While we were planting delicate grasses and perennials, such as California fescue, bush lupine, ceanothus, California fushchia, blue-eyed grass, manzanita, buckwheat and coyote bush, one of the few neighbors in this stretch between a factory and a railroad track began planting Four O'clocks. He put them deliberately on top of the plants that we were putting in, sometimes moving ours and sometimes uprooting them. We were at war. It was public space, but he had no right to be doing that. We were the ones designated by the parks dept to do the planting, and even given some grants for plants. The city was sympathetic but said that we should work it out with him, and they didn't want to cite him for planting flowers. We went to talk with him a few times, taking an interpretor since he spoke only Spanish, and he just shrugged. He simply pressed ahead, planting more and more and MORE of them. He could see the trail from his house, one of the few in the area, and he wanted four o'clocks there. I also don't think he thought much of our puny, drab little natives.

Somebody set fire to the ceanothus, and I do believe that Roundup was sprayed on other plants. The neighbor? Vandals?? Who knows. Today, the only plants that we put in that have survived are some wild roses, a few clumps of deer grass, a couple of redbud, and a jolly expanse of poppies in the spring, surrounded by a sea of Four O'Clocks. They are colorful, but their huge tuberous roots and ability to self-seed means that they will probably be there 100 years from now.

The neighbor does no mulching or trimming or weeding or trash pickup. My husband's bike group still works a few times a year to tidy things up, but I resigned from the project after it was clear that nothing was going to stop this guy and that we were wasting time and money. The trail is used by a more diverse group, since it looks more inviting than the thistle-ridden trashy mess that existed previously, but it's a far cry from the landscape that we envisaged.

Your garden looks very pretty, I must say. I do love the lush look and huge roses that you have. I wonder if eventually the Four O'Clock roots will threaten the roses.
Anita

Jackie -- We've had them here, but have none in the neighborhood now. You remind me that I need to have some of them again.
They'd be great on the hillside.
:-)

Jeri

The alregest tuber from a 4 o'clock that I dug up in New Orleans was five inches in diameter and eighteen inches long. It was growing on a pile of soil on top of a cement slab.

Back when, poor folks in New Orleans used to make necklaces of strung together four o'clock blooms to sell to tourists. The would only last one night, but they probably offset the scent of the French Quarter streets in summer.

I have four o'clocks too and love them. After a while, with successive reseedings ours all turned white, but they make a mass of foliage and flowers and look good and full of bloom when not much else is happening in the garden, and without water.
I appreciate the dangers Anita cites, but I don't see them getting out of hand in our environment, where there's enough water for other plants to grow, and where mowing does the rest. We've had Jalapa mirabilis (four o'clocks) for years, and they've stayed where we wanted them and not strayed.

On another subject, I like your freewheeling garden, Jackie. Ours is another that gets only a reasonable minimum of control, though it isn't as lush as yours--yet. And we have weed problems, which are at their worst this time of year. We're working at it, though!

Melissa

They look pretty in your garden Jackie. Their indestructabilty keeps me from planting more than the two that I have. If I wanted to change a bed or need to plant a smaller rose then they would cause trouble. With your big roses I think it works.

I can see the dangers involved, but I think I would plant them where they could fight it out with the iceplant -- which is the garden menace from Hell.

I know that Four O'Clocks can die off here. I only WISH Iceplant could. I'll take Four O'Clocks over Iceplant ANY day.

Jeri

Amen to that Jeri. There were iceplants here on the slopes as a fire deterrent. They died off there and are climbing UP the slope to invade the nice moist areas where my roses are planted. It's a constant struggle to halt the encroachment. One kind has roots so strong only my husband can yank them out.

Ingrid

Thanks for all of the comments. Just for your info:

1) I have never had four o'clocks show up anywhere except where I planted them.

2) Yesterday I watched a hummingbird eat from them for 5 minutes straight.

3) They are GREAT at suppressing grass weeds, the bane of other parts of my garden.

4) There are other roses in the beds they are in, as well as lilies. The four o'clocks don't show up until mid Summer. Gone - nothing. The lilies show up way before that and grow and bloom happily right where the four o'clocks are lurking below - as do some iris. I think it is neat how they "take turns"!

Jackie

I think they're lovely! And they seem to make a green screen for the bare kneed roses! I tried planting seeds once but they never came up for me. A Blessing?

Thanks for the warning about four o' clocks.
the snails ate all my seedlings of four o' clocks and I won't be planting them again after reading of how they can be invasive.
I have a low-water use garden, and it is likely that the four o'clocks there would overtake my rose garden beside it.
whew! I feel that I've dodged a bullet. I've been digging up that yellow blooming african oxalis weed for more than a year, it is like unto a Hydra monster, when a root is cut up or into with a shovel, it makes a plant out of each portion of root in the soil, even a tiny bit of root that is barely visible.

Lux.

I need to get some four o'clocks! Your photos are just beautiful - they remind me of a mutabilis rose or a colorful string of Christmas lights.

Four O Clocks are annual I think here in Maryland, they seem so pretty, I'll be planting them next year.

When do you think it's the best time to scatter seed for me? In the fall? I'm putting down some texas bluebonnet and poppies. I keep wanting to do california poppies as well, should I sow them in the fall as well?