Yellow Four O’Clock, Marvel of Peru, Beauty of the Night

Description

1″ sunny yellow flowers open in the afternoon or evening, or earlier on cloudy days. A tough and reliable, long-lived, heirloom, pass-a-long perennial which produces a large tuber from which it returns to grace your garden year after year. Four O’Clocks attract pollinating moths, hummingbirds, and larger butterflies.

 Four O’Clocks are long-lived durable perennials that begin flowering in late spring and will continue flowering until the first frost. The fragrant flowers open late in the afternoon and early evening and remain open until the early morning attracting a variety of pollinators including hummingbirds and pollinating moths. They grow from large tubers which can weigh up to 40 pounds and prefer average moist sites but are drought resistant once they are well established in the landscape and require minimal care. They do reseed readily and will happily colonize an area and spread if given the opportunity and so should be given their own area of the garden. They are late to sprout in spring but quickly reqrow and begin flowering in just a few weeks once they do. Flowers come in a variety of colors ranging from red, pink, white, purple, yellow, orange, and multi-colored forms. To learn more about this tough and easy heirloom perennial see “Four O’Clocks (Mirabilis jalapa)” by William C. Welch, Landscape Horticulturist with the Texas AgriLife Extension. In areas where Four O’Clocks are not hardy the tubers can be dug and stored for replanting, save a few seeds for late spring early summer planting, or enjoy them as annuals. In the northern portions of their hardiness range, zones 7B and 8, provide them with an appropriate winter mulch for added protection.