My sisiter in law has Four O`Clocks in assorted colors and gave me a good number of seeds of each color and I want
to plant them next spring. I was telling my mom about them and she said she has some but just like the name,
they only bloom about 4:00 in the morning, so is it worth it to plant these? I don`t know anything about them.

I think they're very cool. Sometimes they reseed, or you can dig the tuber and save it inside over winter. They usually flower from 4 in the afternoon till about 10am.
Don't forget summer days have a long way to go till darkness falls.

jmorth said:I think they're very cool. Sometimes they reseed, or you can dig the tuber and save it inside over winter. They usually flower from 4 in the afternoon till about 10am.
Don't forget summer days have a long way to go till darkness falls.

thanks for the reply, my mom says her have reseeded and are growing everywhere, she said i do not need to plant, just toss
down the seeds. p.s did you mean 4-10 a.m blooms?

4pm overnight till about 10am when they wither away.

IDK what time one 4 O'Clocks were born in but it wasn't Central Time Zone or Houston. Ours bloom around 6-8 pm. We rarely ever get to enjoy their wonderful scent. I love my 4 O' Clocks. BUT. They reseed way to easily and have grown all over my front bed. If you don't pull them out early, the bulb gets so large you have to dig them out. They grow very fast. They are leggy so plant them close together. They have filled the void in the center of a ring of azeleas. Now the center of that circle is solid pink 4 O' Clocks. But today I pulled one out between two loropetalum.

Get some tubers (just dig them up - after the plant dies back) and plant those next spring. They will flower 4 - 6 weeks ahead of seeds. Store over winter like a Dahlia or Glads. That is what I do. They can bloom at odd times but usually late afternoon or evening. Some have more scent than others.

They are perennials in Z8 or higher I believe. Not in Omaha.

jmorth said:4pm overnight till about 10am when they wither away.

So, I could when they bloom come home from work, I get home at 3pm and actually see them!

yes

Placement is a huge factor in bloom time. Needs at least 6 hours of sun, but if placed so it falls into shadows mid-late afternoon, will bloom earlier in the day than an identical plant that's in the sun until it sets. I try to put these on the east side of the house, morning glories on the west side (so they get direct sun as late as possible, causing the blooms to stay open longer in the morning, the same effect but opposite manifestation of it.)

I plant mine all over the place. Started marking them today so the saved tuber color is known when I dig em up in a few days.

I plant mine on the patio with my canna plants. They bloom about 3:00 pm because the of the placement of the sun and the canna leaves offer some shade. I have some planted by the front door the sun is there from early morning until about 2 o'clock so they bloom late afternoon too. I love the fragrance by the front door.

Hello everyone, I just found this thread sorry if I may do something wrong! I usually post in Daylilies forum.
I have 12 germinated seeds of Four o'clocks and want to put them in pots (I can't put them in the garden). I was wondering what kind of pots to use and how many plants put in each. Do you have any advice?
Thanks in advance!

Oh, look!! You are in Italy. Wow.

Here in Savannah, Georgia I grow the Four O'clocks as perennials in-ground, but when I lived in the northeast I grew them as annuals in pots. Depending on the size of the pot you can grow one to 5 plants, maybe one plant for a one-gallon pot and 5 plants in a 5-gallon pot

Yes I'm in Italy and I really enjoy these forums! Lots of nice people and good advices!
Thank you for your reply.
I thought I'd need a bigger pots for one plant, some say they get very tall, some say they are small plants. It's the first time I'm growing them so I don't know what to expect!

If they have room they get big.

Hi Sabrina

The first year it is like a small bush. The second year it is a little bigger. As I said above I plant mine in the pot with my Canna plants and they are in large pots because the canna tubers get big. So I think if you are only planting the Four O'Clocks in the pot it does not have to be a very big pot.

Thank you everyone! So how they get big depends on pot size? Don't they suffer?

4'o'clocks can make a huge tuber too. I dug up one the size of a football.

The tubers can get quite large for each plant. But the pot will also constrain it. I would go with 1 plant in a 6 inch diameter and 6 inch deep pot. Anything smaller will probably be an unhappy plant. But you could probably push 2 or 3 plants in that sized pot, but they will not do well.

I grow them in the ground and dig up/store/replant the tubers.

For the past couple of years I've grown them in pots about 12 inches across and 12 inches deep, 2 plants per pot, where they seemed pretty happy (enough to make a lot of blooms and seeds for the next year, anyway). I'm in the far north of the US, and have never had them make tubers that could be saved.