PlantFiles: Four O'Clock, Marvel of Peru
Mirabilis jalapa 'Broken Colors'

I live on the Western Australian coast, in a region that's notorious for it sandy soil. I had a plant pop up next to my back fence which didn't look like a weed, so I stuck it in a pot.

It soon started flowering, and between about 6.30 and 8pm I have gorgeous pink and yellow blooms come out. Some of the blooms are almost all yellow, some are almost all pink, whilst some are about half and half (all on the same plant).

I had no idea what the plant was, so took some photos down to the local nursery. It took a good hour of pouring over books with the nursery owner to find that I have a Four O'clock, or Marvel of Peru.

I absolutely love this plant, and with the seeds I'm collecting, intend to plant them in the back sandy corner where nothing else will grow. I know they will do well there, as that's where this original plant grew up from.

Really nice bloomer. Mine is still blooming evenin early November. Lots and lots of blooms.

i have attempted to grow 4 oclocks from seed, but due to the last few winters being very unusual up here, i have had little luck. last spring i planted some tubers which i purchased from the garden store. they grew very well, produced plants that were a healthy 3 feet high. although they were described as multi-colored blossoms, they in fact were single color - intense magenta, yellow, white. i have had them seed themselves in the past - at different locations in minnesota - thus, i have let many seeds go where they will. i have also dug the tubers (which, by the way are about 4 times bigger than the ones planted last spring) and will try to over winter in dry peat and cool temps. we will see what happens. i live in the woods , with very little for sun - the 4 oclocks all did well with uneven sun. the deer left them alone until just recently - now the deer are carbo loading to get through the winter, so they eat things they have generally left alone all summer. that's ok, they were here first!
also, this summer here was very weird - many of my friends remarked they had alot of "texture" in their yards this summer - many perennials that usually bloom heavily, did not bloom or bloomed very late. my morning glories did not bloom until september 23. the 4 oclocks were late also. i think we will be suffering through many unusual things up this way.

Some of my plants came up solid fuschia, but most came up streaked. They do indeed bloom late in the evening.

My 4'o' clocks are doing very well, even though I set the seeds out right before the rare exstermly hard frost they are undaunted and are staring to bloom, unfortnely they are less then a foot tall.

Vigorous reseeders, haven't noticed a fragrance but my yellows were taken over by the fuschia; perhaps only the yellow are fragrant? Easy to gather seeds, grows just about anywhere and the colors are lively and vibrant. They even continue to grow after they fall over from being to heavy...LOL!

My only complaint is that after a hard rain later in the season they get all the dead flowers hung up in them and look pretty icky for a little while.

This beauty just appeared in my garden 2 years ago. In the autumn I collected the little black pea like seeds and started them off the following spring on the kitchen windowsill. I planted them out once they were about 3 inches high and every single plant took. They do not seem to survive the winter here, but are so easy to grow from seed that doesn't seem to be a problem. They do tend to self seed, but are easy enough to pull up if they are in the wrong place. I have never seen them anywhere else in England, and just love the variety of colours on each plant. Would be interested to know if anyone else has them here in the uk, and also where it came from to start with??

This plant wintersowed well. Plants put out an abundance of flowers. I haven't noticed much of a scent though. I have them in containers as well as in the ground.

I planted one of these from seed (Burpees) next to my west-facing front door four years ago, and it has come up from its root, perrenial style, for the past three years! I live on Cape Cod, Zone 6. Last year when it came up it was over three feet tall...I was surprised to see it emerging this week, again, and am eager to see how big it gets this summer! It grows in a bed of bearded iris, which it doesn't seem to interfere with. It's a gorgeous plant, and makes lots of babies. Maybe I'll offer it as a seed trade this year....

These plants are easily overwintered in climates where they are not hardy. Just dig up the tubers around the first frost date, throw them in some peat moss and put them in the basement until Spring. I am still enjoying plants that were sown from seed four years ago and they come back stronger each year.

Four O'Clock is not hardy in zone 5, but is easily grown as an annual. The flowers open in the morning and evening, and are so fragrant when they are open.

I have read that you can dig the tuber up and save it like a dahlia; I am trying that now to see if it will work.

My own notes: Sometimes "Quatro en Punto" in Spanish. In the summer heat mine are barely a 10 o' clock, but stay open all day in cool fall weather. I agree that 50% of progeny are solid colored, so I pull these immediately to preserve the strain as they reseed. I suggest (In hot places) growing the plants where the sun will either not touch them first thing in the morning or in the later evening so that the flowers can be enjoyed longer before they are smitten by old Apollo’s spear. Hummingbirds in my garden are attracted to only flowers with pink in them.

An easy to grow heirloom of novel late-season interest.

My method for fourty years is to weed them where they ain't wanted and to leave them where nothing else will grow. And they will grow in the hottest, dryest, narrowest, parts of the property alongside blazingly hot fences and walls. Then they grow into perfect spheres of green leaves and kaleidascope flowers.
A horticulturist friend uses Mirabilis tuber/caudex's grown in pots as an example for his classes. After a few years they look like expensive " fat plant" bonsai when raised up out of the soil a bit. Only with beautiful flowers-ha.

These grow with great vigor in northern Wisconsin. I sow them directly into the ground right around Memorial day. I have not found that the bees like them. We have a hive very close by and have yet to see bees on them. I do however see lots of hummingbirds enjoying them. I have also found that of all the different colors of my 4 o'clocks, the white ones seem to open earlier than the other colors. Strange.

It's a beautiful flower but it's not a Four O´Clock flower but Half past Six flower in my case (Northern Spain, with warm Summers)

Blooms better in poor soil with regular watering.
Sand at our location E-Tx and clay in NW Ar.

I grow from seed plants with yellow flowers and plants with red/fuchsia flowers and although both varieties are fragant the yellow one is distinctly more fragrant. In my case it is also more an "8 o'clock" than a "4 o'clock", but it depends on temperature and the amount of shade and humidity they take. The best site to make the best of the fragance is a patio, where the scent can accumulate in the evening.

The flowers on this plant are really quite pretty but its not a "4 O'clock" for me its an "8 O'clock". So I rarely get to see it open. As per the fragrance I don't know what this hubub about it being fragrant is. I stuck my nose right in it and couldn't smell a thing and I don't have a cold. Because it opens so late and has no (as reported) smell (though it is easy from seed and the blossoms are pretty) I will give it a negative. If you just like to try things though and like variegated blossoms you could try it.

I started these plants from tubers that I bought at the local hardware store. First time I'd ever seen them like that. The tubers were about the size of my little finger. Plants took a couple of weeks to show above ground but then they really took off. All of mine were yellow unfortunately-or perhaps not since they were in a largely yellow bed, and were a mass of flowers over a long period of time. Even when not open they added a certain amount of colour. By the time I dug the tubers up in the fall they were closer to the size of parsnips. They store the same way that dahlia tubers are kept and you get a much bigger plant, much sooner this way- assuming you are growing them outside their hardiness zone.

Pretty easy to grow. I haven't seen them bloom yet. This was my first year starting them. With a Name 4 O'clock...I would assume they open in the evening. I don't think the plant deserved a negative when this is the nature of the plant.

I have grown the broken color (pink & yellow) version of "Four O' Clocks" for 3 seasons now sucessfully here in Zone 6b, so-it can withstand our winter temperatures of around 10-35 degrees F. The plants die down in the fall & pop up again from the tubers in late spring, and also self-seed a lot! The plants are heat-loving, and the moisture/ humidity seems to promote rapid growth & blooming. But they are also somewhat drought tolerant because I had to pull out a lot of new ones the other day to give the bigger ones room to grow (even if you try to gather the seeds, you'll miss some and get lots of volunteers). I put the young plants in a couple of buckets with just a little water (planning to plant them elsewhere later-but ran out of time!) and they are still green and fresh-looking after 4 days--so, this is a very easy plant to grow. Here in Tennessee they tend to open in the 4 to 6 o'Clock timeframe. Mine have done best when they have a wall or fence to grow up against and often need staking. The fragrance is lovely as well as the flowers!

Hi! I used to live in Queens, NYC where a neighbor had it growing in the front yard. It was small, maybe no higher than 15 in. But now I live in Australia and, having seen the bush in a neighboring garden, gathered seed to plant in my garden. This year the plant is flourishing beyond my expecation and has grown a whopping 67 inches tall. Some flowers are yellow, some pink, and many muti-colored. There's no disappointment with this plant. The soil here is clay and that doesn't seem to pose a problem.
And it does have a wonderful fragrance. That's something I never noticed from the plant in NY.

I've just read that four o'clocks are a trap plant for Japanese Beetles. Apparently the plant attracts them, but once the bugs eat the plant it poisons them! I wish I had known this when I was living in a Japanese Beetle infested yard near Atlanta, Georgia.

Fragrant night bloomers! Plant near your bedroom window or patio/porch where you can enjoy them in the evenings. Very easy to care for - in Florida prefers shade to full sun - but will survive drought periods due to tubers. Easily self sows or may collect seeds. Seeds are very easy to handle/collect and plant.

Note that when planting these Kaleidoscope/broken color four o'clocks from seeds, they may or may not produce the same effect in the new plants. Some will come up as solid pink or yellow, while others will carry on the broken colors. My experience has been about 50% will be broken color while the other 50% will be either pink or yellow solid four o'clocks.

This plant is a native of Mexico.

In my experience, these open during warm months at about 3-4 pm in the afternoon (hence the nickname or popular name of "four o'clocks".

However, I have observed these in Mexico, Louisiana and Texas only. Perhaps in more northern climes they open later.

These plants self-seed very easily, and the seeds are fairly prominent, so they are very easy to collect and save or share.

Flowers open in the early evening, so plant where you will see them at dusk.