Earlier this year in March, we germinated some Marvel of Peru (AKA the Four O’clock Plant) seeds that we purchased from Real Seeds as it sounded like a strange plant. As it said on Wikipedia, “The flowers usually open from late afternoon or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o’clock), giving rise to one of its common names. The flowers then produce a strong, sweet fragrance throughout the night, then close in the morning.” Well, we had to have some of that!
We started off a few seedlings, gave a few away and kept a couple for ourselves. The above picture is one from our good gardening friend Adrienne who said “The flowers are getting better and better. Must love the heat!” It looks brilliant.
Here’s the couple we have kept (above). There’s a small one to the left of what we think is a larger version of the plant (with no flowers as yet) in the reused food bin. The small version has started to flower and hopefully will bring us more! Fingers crossed that it is a Marvel Of Peru in the bin.
We’ve read that the plant is invasive in hotter climates but thankfully not in the UK as the annual frosts kill it. We may bring in the one in the food bin over winter as it seems a great plant! Interesting stuff about the plant here.
The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.
We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!
Weeds up to me knees 