Perhaps 4-0-clocks, which have large tuberous roots and are just now coming up.

looks like four o clocks to me too.

your description and photo is a 4:00. no doubt about it. they get big and hummingbirds love them.

We grow tons of four o'clocks, but then we have the space for them to grow rampantly and reseed so it isn't a problem that they can be so invasive. I do try my best to keep them outside the fenced veggie garden, though I've let some of them stay in the fenceline. That wasn't my plan, but I'd have to dig so deeply to get them out that it would leave the rabbits and other critters with a big deep spot with soft soil so they could come under the fence, so I'd rather have 4 o'clocks growing in the fenceline than rabbits growing in the garden.

I use four o'clocks as a compost crop too. Because mine are in morning sun/afternoon shade, a lot of them get really tall (like 5-6' tall) stretching for the sunlight, and then they get heavy with blooms and start falling over. I go out with the lopping shears and selectively cut back a bunch of them right down to the ground, giving me tons of biomass for the compost piles. They regrow in no time at all. Not only do the hummingbirds love them, but so do all the night-flying moths. I love them too---they are very tough and can survive tremendous heat on low rainfall. Their scent perfumes the whole yard in the evenings.

I consider four o'clocks a garden friend. Even my dad, who mostly grew veggies and fruit and didn't plant a lot of flowers, grew 4 o'clocks. If you like to have a nice, neat garden with plants that stay nicely in the spot where you put them, I can see where they could become a garden foe. I am very careful to pull out the 4 billion little four o'clock seedlings that sprout in the spring where I don't want them. Because I've tossed so many big four o'clock plants on compost piles over the years, we now have four o'clocks not just in their original location, but in the three compost piles that are scattered around our place. It is so hard to find plants that tolerate clay soil and very low rainfall in summer, and four o'clocks do both, so I love them. They're also one of the prettiest compost crops I grow.

They must love Dawn...I grow them...but they disappear after a while. I keep planting more seeds but I haven't found their happy spot yet

They must love Dawn...I grow them...but they disappear after a while. I keep planting more seeds but I haven't found their happy spot yet

Lisa, It was odd. For several years I started them from seed, and had them every summer but then they wouldn't come back the following year. After several years of that, all of a sudden not only did they come back the following year, they spread and ran wild. I don't know what changed. I always assumed something was eating their bulbous roots in the winter, but never even found a partially eaten root to back up my theory. They just vanished. We have become progressively drier, so maybe in those early years, there was too much rain in some years and they stayed wet and the roots rotted in winter.

I hope you find a happy spot at your place for them. At my dad's house in the 1980s and 1990s they did a pretty good job of shading out bermuda, which is reason enough for me to grow them here. I have them on the east side of the big pecan tree, where they are multipurpose---providing lush, dense foliage where the chickens can run and hide when hawks are trying to get them.

The common magenta ones come back reliably for me, but the broken colors, white ones and yellow ones don't. About 95% of the ones I have now are the common ones with magenta or hot pink blooms, a few are "Teatime Rose" and every now or then I get a white-flowered or yellow-flowered one. The "Broken Colors" ones came back one year and then never again so after replanting them every year for several years, I gave up on them too. I love their odd mix of colors, but not enough to start over from seed every year. I don't mess with anything that is too finicky here. Most of what I grow is either very tough perennials or reseeding annuals that grow with virtually no help from me. The lack of rainfall in June, July and August weeds out anything that is too delicate or that needs irrigation or care of any kind.

Dawn

I have them all over too, but the fancy ones don't last. Like Dawn said it is the what I call fuchsia ones that come back.

I am so glad this thread got started. I salvaged a massive amount of fouroclocks and a few rose bushes and some other stuff from a house that was about to be demolished. Everyone said fouroclocks were horrible and would take over and I would regret it. But since I am venturing out into flowers this year thanks to Moni I thought I could put these in a 30 gal tub sink it and watch for seeds to keep them contained, So glad to hear they can be a friend.
kim