Am I nuturing a beautiful flower or harboring a weed?

Here are my 4 Oclocks.  They are not blooming in the day only after it cools off towards evening.  The older and largest leaf in the picture is 3 inches wide and 4 inches long.  The top leaves are quite small.









I should have waited until evening when it was blooming but I was afraid I would forget to take a picture.  Oh Well.

Yolos
What kind of soil are they in? They are so pretty and green.
They are called 4 O'clocks for a reason.
Jo

littlejo wrote:Yolos
What kind of soil are they in? They are so pretty and green.
They are called 4 O'clocks for a reason.
Jo

This pot has miracle grow in it and some compost added.  I have two other plantings that are in MM.  Those two plantings are on the downhill side.  I have been harvesting seeds from them for a few weeks.  The pot in the picture just started to flower about a week ago.

littlejo wrote:...They are called 4 O'clocks for a reason.
Jo

I remember being a very young child, and visiting my grandma in northern Ohio.  She had 4 O'clocks, and every day I would go out at 4 PM to watch the blossoms open.  Having no attention span or patience at that age, I never did see them do their thing!

boffer wrote:

littlejo wrote:...They are called 4 O'clocks for a reason.
Jo

I remember being a very young child, and visiting my grandma in northern Ohio.  She had 4 O'clocks, and every day I would go out at 4 PM to watch the blossoms open.  Having no attention span or patience at that age, I never did see them do their thing!

Excerpt from Burpee's website.
The bloom time of four o’clocks (Mirabilis jalapa) is said to correspond to changes in light and temperature, so they open in the cool of the evening, usually between about four and eight p.m., or a bit earlier on cloudy afternoons.

yolos wrote:

This pot has miracle grow in it and some compost added.  I have two other plantings that are in MM.  Those two plantings are on the downhill side.  I have been harvesting seeds from them for a few weeks.  The pot in the picture just started to flower about a week ago.

If I may ask, are the plants in your photos from your own seeds? If so, how many years have you been growing them from your own seeds?

Thanks.
Brad

[quote="Marc Iverson"]

Windmere wrote:

TCgardening wrote:
Meanwhile, I have like 15 or more borage plants all over the place.  Given their prolific nature... I think we will be having them for decades to come.

I've found it very hard to germinate the borage seeds I get from Botanical Interests. Where do you get your seeds? I need a borage success story already.

I planted all 25 seeds in my packet of Botanical Interests borage seeds and only have 4 plants to show for it. BUT.... I have four plants to show for it. Now, if I could just keep them alive...

MackerelSky wrote:

yolos wrote:

This pot has miracle grow in it and some compost added.  I have two other plantings that are in MM.  Those two plantings are on the downhill side.  I have been harvesting seeds from them for a few weeks.  The pot in the picture just started to flower about a week ago.

If I may ask, are the plants in your photos from your own seeds? If so, how many years have you been growing them from your own seeds?

Thanks.
Brad

No, this is the first year I have grown the 4 Oclocks.  I am collecting seeds this year so I wont have to buy them next year.  Also, the package was mixed colors so I am saving the seeds by color so I can decide what color I plant where.

CapeCoddess wrote:

Marc Iverson wrote:

Windmere wrote:

TCgardening wrote:
Meanwhile, I have like 15 or more borage plants all over the place.  Given their prolific nature... I think we will be having them for decades to come.

I've found it very hard to germinate the borage seeds I get from Botanical Interests.  Where do you get your seeds?  I need a borage success story already.

I planted all 25 seeds in my packet of Botanical Interests borage seeds and only have 4 plants to show for it. BUT.... I have four plants to show for it. Now, if I could just keep them alive...

I bought my borage seeds from Johnny's Seeds about three years ago and I have no trouble with germination.  I do germinate them inside in pots though.  They say they do not transplant well but I have had no problems with transplanting.  Now I just need to find the seeds on the plants so I can save some.  I finally found the Nasturtium and 4 O'clock seeds so I am saving those now along with my cosmos, marigolds and this year Winterbor Kale and sunflowers.

yolos wrote:
No, this is the first year I have grown the 4 Oclocks.  I am collecting seeds this year so I wont have to buy them next year.  Also, the package was mixed colors so I am saving the seeds by color so I can decide what color I plant where.

Thanks yolos, they looked so good I thought you maybe had your own 'strain' going. They are pretty easy seeds to locate and save. Mom used to use the fiber egg cartons to save them, labeled for colors and kept in her 'seed' closet over the winter.

Shoot, you could just pull the planters inside over the winter and I'll bet the 'tuber' will come back to life come spring. Or dig them up and put the tubers between layers of newspaper in a cool dry place over the winter. Just a thought.

All the Best
Brad

Wow, thanks everyone for such amazing input on this question.  Marie and Littlejo (and others) I think you are all on to something when you say that my plants might be Poke.  Littlejo, your photos look very, very similar.  Good to know it could end up being poisonous... although I never had the thought to try to eat it.

I read the comments about four o'clocks with great interest.  Where I grew up, I had nothing but the fuschia colored four o'clocks.  In fact, that was the most common color all over Los Angeles.  And you saw them EVERYWHERE.  However, my wife grew up with the variegated variety around her house.  My mother-in-law and I were chatting about them a couple years ago, and she told me something I found to be quite funny.  Their variegated four o'clocks were the only ones of their kind in their whole neighborhood.  My mother-in-law would clean up the seeds that fell outside their fence every day to prevent the neighbors from getting seeds.  And man, from what she told me, those neighbors really tried to get seeds.  You have to know my mother-in-law to know no one would ever suspect her of being so possessive (perhaps even devious) about her rare variegated four o'clocks... I'm tickled just thinking about it.

That being said...  four o'clocks literally grew like weeds.  I remember, as a boy, digging up the tubers so I could plant other things.  Those tubers are quite tenacious, particularly if they are decades old.

Here's the thing that kills me...  I bought a packet of the infamous variegated four o'clocks and I've tried to get them to germinate for two seasons now.  No success at all.  Weeds in California I say!!  Sheesh.

As for the borage...  I also read about how they can be sensitive to transplanting.   What I did with my seeds was make pockets of Mel's Mix in our amended clay.  I then planted about three seeds per pocket (I also read that there can be many duds... evidently that is normal).  Having done all that, my wife jeers at me for all the trouble I took because it looked like they came up like hearty weeds.

Yolos, it seems to me that there is virtually nothing that won't germinate for you!  And you even got away with transplanting borage.  I'm quite envious of you. 

PS:  Cajun Cappy, I roared with laughter when I read your astute observation about my weed!

Windmere wrote:
Yolos, it seems to me that there is virtually nothing that won't germinate for you!  And you even got away with transplanting borage.  I'm quite envious of you. 

No, no.  You hear about my success but I don't often share my failures.  I try to be as positive as I can.  Did I tell you I had to plant corn three times before I finally got a good stand.  Nasturtiums, I have to plant about 10 seeds to get one to germinate.   It took me three years to get lettuce to germinate.  Carrots are hard for me as well.  And on and on it goes.

yolos wrote:...You hear about my success but I don't often share my failures...

I'm guilty of that also.  It's just not as much fun talking about what didn't work, or maybe it feels like I'm complaining.  

I try to keep Einstein's analysis in mind:  (paraphasing) "When my experiment doesn't achieve the desired outcome, I don't consider it a failure.  To the contrary,  I've just discovered one more way that  doesn't work."

Since gardening is a lifetime experiment, when our plants fail to produce our desired harvest, that too can be a valuable learning experience to share.  

Easier said than done!