I have collected some great seeds from my own four o’clocks, but they are only pinkish, whitish and white with pink stripes / specks.

My parents used to have a variety of colours: I recall yellow, reddish, pinkish, and possibly orange.

The only place I can source these colours is in the USA: does anybody know off-hand if these seeds are OK to send from the USA to Aust? If not, I’ll ring the Qld DPI during the week…

There’s some on ebay.

Dinetta, I have loads of self sown seedlings from my yellow/red Mirabilis. If you think they’d survive the post I would be happy to send you some. Most of them are in pots with roses, and will have to come out when I prune.

Dinetta said:

I have collected some great seeds from my own four o’clocks, but they are only pinkish, whitish and white with pink stripes / specks.

My parents used to have a variety of colours: I recall yellow, reddish, pinkish, and possibly orange.

The only place I can source these colours is in the USA: does anybody know off-hand if these seeds are OK to send from the USA to Aust? If not, I’ll ring the Qld DPI during the week…

Oh how embarrassment! I just did a google image search on these, and lo and behold, I have some, only I have been calling them the wrong name for years! I even gave some seeds to Collie. :O
Yo Collie, those ‘Nicotiana’ seeds I gave you….better change that to Mirabilis jalapa…

Dinetta, I used to have yellow and orange at the old place. I only brought the pink and white with me. Will go visit my neighbour and see if any self seeded, and if I can scavenge some seeds. If not, I remember where I scavenged the seeds from in the first place and it’s only a short drive. I’ll collect some for you as soon as I find some seeding. I think it’s too late for last season’s and too early for the next lot.

I’m overwhelmed! What a wonderful response from HortFurBall and Orchid40!

The reason I like 4 0’clocks is that the pale flowers attract moths at night, even on a moonless night, and this keeps the frogs fed…

Stumbled on this accidentally one night, about 10 years ago, when I had 4 o’clocks in a bed beside the back deck…they’ve become casualties of backyard cricket and soccer, but a few of the white-ish ones have managed to self-seed into pots …I have finally decided to place pots of 4 o’clocks along their erstwhile garden bed, ready for next summer…they are largely periennial here, but in my home town they were annuals (only 60 miles away! colder there in winter because higher than SwampVille here)…

I thought if I could have some different colours, like Mum and Dad had, it would be like a memory thing for my late father, as Mother is 92 not out…

This week I am very busy with travels, etc, so thank you HortFurBall and Orchid40 for your kind offers: I’ll accept and work out some details next week, if that’s OK?

Dinetta said:

This week I am very busy with travels, etc, so thank you HortFurBall and Orchid40 for your kind offers: I’ll accept and work out some details next week, if that’s OK?

No worries. No rush though, like I said, mine aren’t seeding at the moment (but then I did rip the old ones out) so I don’t know if I can source seed from the other colours just yet.

That’s fine Dinetta, just give me a shout when you’re ready :)

I’m ready for the seeds now, please and thank you…