Night White

At last I am introducing Oenothera pallida "Innocence", one of the few plant varieties I grew from seed last winter.  It deserved to be presented sooner!  The first one began blooming about a week and a half ago.  It is a night-bloomer; and especially during the first week, the blossoms were entirely spent by midmorning.  Oddly enough, they are holding a little longer through the mornings now, and I am adjusting (slightly) to photographing their stark white blossoms.

As it comes into its own, it is proving floriferous, up to six large (3.5 in/9 cm) blooms on a couple of the plants tonight.  It is low-growing; my specimens thus far are around 8 - 12 inches (20 - 30 cm) high with considerable variation in width, up to 2 ft (61 cm) wide in one case, though the others are smaller.  It has a low, semi-prostrate habit.

Growth is open; at this point I would say this is not a plant to smother weeds, unlike O. speciosa.  Perhaps that will change as it settles in ever more strongly.  With its current habit, I would like to grow some of the taller summer bulbs through the foliage.

As I noted earlier, its flowers open at night.  They turn pink and collapse next morning.  The plants seem to be more or less self-cleaning, with spent blooms dropping off the plant within a few days.

My first glimpse of them is generally by the electric lights from the adjacent patio.  The luminous white petals have a wonderful glow, even in the dark.  I have never before grown anything for a night garden.  I begin to understand its allure through these plants - the sense of something that has just bloomed, just made its presence known after the day is done, something fugitive and sweet. And they are a little fugitive, especially here where there is so little dusk due to the latitude and low humidity.

What is not fugitive is the scent, perhaps best described as very sweet lemon with no tang.  It's hard to describe a smell!  There is plenty of it; it's probably the most fragrant flower I have at the moment, and happily, it becomes airborne, wafting across the garden.

The species is a western US native, growing in Colorado and Utah.  It is said (Southwest Colorado Wildflowers) to spread by means of its rhizomes.

I discovered this variety by chance as I was hunting through end-of-season bargains from Park Seeds last year.  I am so pleased that I tried it!  The plants themselves have been very sturdy, showing almost no transplanting shock, and never seeming concerned about dry conditions.  Though I confess that I've been keeping them fairly well watered since I've been enjoying their flowers so much...

Footnote: I've decided it may be very helpful later if I begin posting a record of weather conditions now.  This way I will be able to make comparisons from one month, or year, to the next.  So for today: Sunny, Low: 59 F (15 C)/High: 85 F (29.4 C)