Is it Four o’ Clock?

This flower is best know by it’s common name of “Four o’ Clocks”, but it also goes by the names of Marvel of Peru, and it’s Latin name of Mirabilis jalapa.

As it’s common name implies this flower begins to bloom in the late afternoon around 4 pm. Mine have never opened that early though. Mine tend to open somewhere between 6 pm and 8 pm on long summer days.

I’ve found that the white four o’ clocks produce the strongest scent so I tend to only have white four o’ clocks in my garden. The scent is a strong jasmine and since the flowers tend to bloom all night long the garden is scented with their lovely jasmine scent at night.

This is an annual flower that produces large round hard black seeds from September until it stops blooming. I simply save the seeds in a cool dry place in the winter and plant them directly in the garden in late spring or early summer in order to produce new plants each year.