Evening Primrose - Weed or Flower?

14 years ago

Hi - I'm still relatively new to gardening, and I just discovered I have a couple of these (evening primroses) in my garden. About three years ago I bought some bee balm and something else that I can't remember from a lady in town who was thinning her garden. Unfortunately, the bee balm didn't seed, although I'd hoped they would, and the other I just can't remember for the life of me what it was! I'm wondering if this evening primrose could have been what I bought and planted back then...I remember it coming up last year, and I could't tell if it was a weed or a flower, so I potted one and kept it around for weeks, and I felt silly babying this thing that was probably a weed, so finally, I tossed it. I have no idea where it came from unless this was what I bought and I can't remember, or maybe some of the seeds were in the potted up plants I'd purchased from someone.

Do they go by any other name? If it IS from the plant I bought years ago, I'm sure it wasn't labeled as a primrose. **scratches head*** Lol*

Oh, and is it a weed after all??? LOL***

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Comments (7)

midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
14 years ago
Depends on the cultivar....

Nancy.
token28001
14 years ago
If it's the pink variety that pops when you touch a ripe seed pod, it's a flowering weed.
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quilt_mommy
Original Author
14 years ago
It's not pink, but I sure wish it was!!! Weed or not! LOL* It's yellow, and it's kind of a stalk almost of yellow flowers...I'm thinking it's a weed...

Any idea of how invasive this could be in my Northeast Ohio garden?
token28001
14 years ago
Oenothera biennis?

It is listed as weedy or invasive for areas like the South, Kentucky, etc. I'm not sure I would call it invasive even here in NC. It does reseed, but the one place I know it's growing, it's not terrible. It's in an unmaintained bed downtown and there are only a few plants each summer than pop up. I'm sure no one is pulling any seedlings.
kathi_mdgd
14 years ago
Here's my pink evening primrose.It does re-seed quite well and i pull a lot of it out every year after the bloom is over,ad it always comes back.I like to keep it around as i think it's pretty.
Kathi
Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
14 years ago
Does it look like this?

{{gwi:38947}}

If it does I believe it's Oenothera fruticosa. I love them! Yes, they do want to take over a garden bed, but they are so easy to pull up. I let them do their thing every early-summer and then rip bunches out. They come back the following year and I'd never know I pulled them out by the handfuls. I have them in beds filled with daylilies. After they bloom they just fade into the background. They will take over if you let them, but I think they are worth it to let them go and then yank them from the garden after the flowers fade! Any one of them that begins to encroach on another perennial gets pulled.
quilt_mommy
Original Author
14 years ago
thyme2dig - YES!!! Finally! Those are exactly what they look like! Lol* I have two or three of them that came up and they are so pretty I couldn't pull them. Wow they look really gorgeous in your garden! I think I'm gonna keep them around then, and see what they do.

Thank you so much for the help! :)