I plant Mirabilis jalapa (Marvel of Peru or the old-fashioned Four O’Clock) around my vegetable garden as a border, spacing the seeds closer than usual.
By the middle of July, I have a lovely flowering hedge that sometimes lasts until frost. It gets to be about 2 feet high and about as wide and is a perfect mass of many colored blossoms.
Four O’Clocks do well in very poor soil and are easy to grow. After plants get large enough to shade, the ground, they grow so bushy that they seem to discourage weeds.
They make a perfect screen for my vegetable garden and people invariably say, “What a pretty sight!” Flowers, in shades of red, yellow, white and mixed open in late afternoon and remain open until the morning sun shines brightly.
by WF Bridgman
