Sow There! 7-20 Four o'clocks
Clock strikes for four o’clocks
I’m not one of those people who dedicates a sweaty afternoon to weeding. My method is to take the garden tour every morning and every evening. It’s an up-wind and down-wind ritual. Somehow things are different each time I meander around the garden beds.
A new bud may have emerged on the rose bush during the night. One morning I might check out the Early Girl tomatoes, but not notice until nightfall that the tomatoes were starting to turn red.
Weeds are the same way. I have clumps of spotted spurge, a gangly weed that creeps into the gaps between ornamentals with the skill of a stealth bomber. On the slow morning garden saunter, I pay close attention to which weeds are starting the first stages of bloom, as this is the moment when you either yank it or live with the next generation.
Currently I am on a concentrated attack upon the four o’clocks.
When feelings run hot and cold
My relationship with four o’clocks was an honest mistake. I was young and naive. When I was looking at a barren space in my yard, I sought out a plant that would be strong, one that would withstand the dry, hot summer and produce as much beauty as was possible from that slice of earth.
I went into this blindly, perhaps overzealous. Sadly, I did not take the time to weigh my options.
This was about eight years ago.
What bothers me the most is that a friend sternly warned me about planting four o’clocks. She was trying not to be too harsh about my choice, but told me I would someday regret my decision to knowingly let those oblong, black seeds touch the soil.
“I know you, Heather,” she said with restrained fervor. “You won’t be able to contain it. Four o’clocks will walk all over you.”
Why, why, why didn’t I listen to her?
Plant has no pity
The thing about four o’clocks is that they are a selfish plant. Other types of weeds are merely opportunistic.
Weeds such as sourgrass creep up in those little wedges of soil that a carefully selected plant has not yet claimed.
Four o’clocks, on the other hand, bully themselves into all the choice spots in the garden bed, then grow vigorously and block out the sun to those other plants the gardener carefully selected.
Each flower of the four o’clock, Mirabilis jalapa, produces a hard, black seed that needs only the most idle of a breeze to shake off onto the ground. The seeds also appear to have 100 percent fertility.
By error and more error, I have tried to quickly get rid of four o’clocks by nipping them at the base with garden clippers. But this just appears to make them more determined to cause me consternation.
During recent research, I learned that the plants also have underground tubers, which means that just when you think you have the plants licked, the tuber regenerates growth to renew the battle all over again.
Also, they will hide under the leaves of other plants, as if they know I will be out there every morning and every evening yanking them from their comfortable camouflage. If I am not vigilant for a day, I will return and find the four o’clocks five inches taller than the other plants.
Near the end
There are many stories I could tell about myself and the four o’clocks — the ups and downs, times of weakness and times of fury.
At one point I gave in to compassion and just let the reoccurring plants have their way with my yard. But the resentments didn’t go away.
I even tried a semi-trial separation, by throwing some of the seeds into a neglected part of the yard. I thought maybe they would understand that we have different goals in life, and just accept that they had lost the right to have a place in my main garden.
Nay. The problems remained unresolved.
Then I felt trapped.
Why wouldn’t this plant just get the point and allow the struggle to end gracefully?
How many years can one mistake haunt a gardener?
Four-o’clocks got their name because their blooms open in the afternoon. It’s the same concept as “morning glories,” which bloom in the cool of the early hours. Morning glories are also invasive, but for some reason I like them, for now.
However, four o’clocks should be admired from a distance.
They are tenacious and sweet-smelling. Also, it’s novel that they bloom only in the afternoon. However, my experience is that they only bloom when I’m at work, and then only for 15 minutes before closing up to avoid the hot Chico sun.
A co-worker said a friend recommended that she plant four o’clocks in her small yard. The only thing I can say is that my co-worker ought to re-evaluate her friendship with the giver of that advice.
Apologies to those of you who adore your four o’clocks in your yard. That’s just the way it is with the plant world — one gardener’s delight is another gardener’s distress.
Comments
Heather,
I have my four o'clock in a pot and love it! I'm telling you...BOUNDARIES are important in any love affair! :)
Posted by: Hyacinth | July 21, 2007 10:23 AM