Four o clock seeds (need advice)

When should I start four o clock seeds? Now or wait and just put them in the planters in spring, which is a few weeks away. I hear they are invasive, so I am thinking pots or hanging planters since mine are multicolored. Does anyone have pictures of them in their yard?
Linda

I’m not familiar with the Arizona climate, but Four O’ clocks can be direct sown. They are not invasive, but reseed readily. Four O’ clocks are large plants, getting about 2-3 feet tall, with a nice spread and are quite stocky, they would not work well in a hanging basket. If in a planter, it would need to be a good size. Four O’ clocks are a very nice flower – you will enjoy them!

Four O'Clocks are very prolific re-seeders. You can do a search on the name of what you have, adding invasive into it, and see what info comes up. The only 4 o'clocks I'm familiar with is the wild one, which is very invasive. I'm not sure if always white, but the ones I see are white. I had a garden that somehow got full of the wild one, so I'm not very fond of them...lol...boy are they pretty though!!!☺

Since Four O' Clocks are quite big plants, I don't think hanging it would be a good idea. So you better do a thorough research before planting it.

Thanks for the advice. I will do some research, we have wild ones behind our yard in the desert. They are beautiful, but don't get huge here. I would love to start some all over the hill behind me, but haven't been successfull with desert wildflowers yet. This is the year I should have spread seed and raked in because of all the rain. Maybe I will try again. There is a hill behind me that can be seen from my backyard.

I have a flower bed out front that has irises that come up and grape hyacynths on their own and allysum, do you thing 4 o clocks could do well there. It is self contained.

curves i would just put thrn in the gkown i don.t think yhry would hrow well in a poy. love nettie

They're likely to be perennial for you in your zone, so keep that in mind when choosing your spot. Looks like they would be well suited to that bed. Lovely Snapdragons, by the way!

In my zone 6A they are very invasive but the seedlings are big enough to make them easy to pull out.
Roxanne

A few went in that flower bed to see how I like them.

In my yard the Humminbird Moths love them! Good luck!
Roxanne

Curves, the cultivated Mirabilis is very hardy and re-seeds freely, but are not considered invasive. Nearly every seed that hits the ground will sprout, but the seedlings are easy to remove. The plant forms a tuber and will return in mid spring each year. This plant is 4 years old, I remove seeds as I think about it...grin

Beautiful plant , I hope we can count on Spring soon. We have been in the 40's at night and I had to move everything back in the green house, still fighting the nat problem, but only a few. I leave the door open on greenhouse during day now. Speaking of seeds , I'm trying to figure out a clever way to catch all the china berry seeds that will be dropping in my cleand up flowerbed soon! I was up on a ladder for two hours cutting them off and it looks like I did nothing. It is budding out.