After the mexican primrose

Two years ago an area in our front yard was invaded by the beautiful mexican primrose, here in Long Beach, CA. The flowers are beautiful - then die out about this time of year, leaving rhyzomes for next year. I let them grow, but now that they're dying, I'm pulling out the dead foliage and impressed by the sheer amount of material involved!

In spite of the flowers in season, I'm wondering if I should try to eliminate this stuff, and if so how to go about it. Or, should I just mix in a little extra topsoil and nutrients, go ahead and plant the area with some ground-covering perennials, and let things go until the primrose's return next spring?

Any advice, war stories, and the like?

Thanks.

Josh

Reply to
JXStern
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If you pull the foliage you will not have flowers for many years because the plant cannot photosynthesize and make and store enough energy to flower. I am not sure what a Mexican primrose is. Can you be more specific? I mean, around here they call everything from Ruellia to winecups Mexican primroses.

Reply to
Jangchub

Here in California, "Mexican evening primrose" is Oenothera speciosa.

It does die back, although here in Northern California it's still blooming. I don't think there's any problem in removing (dead) foliage, it is part of its natural cycle. I would plant something else in hat area and wait for it to come back the following year, it may be too much trouble to try to eliminate it.

Paulo

Reply to
Paulo da Costa

This will do:

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I've actually done them in pots, a skimpy, mostly flowerless foliage will last until late summer, and it appears gone, but the rhizomes survive and are very vigorous. Even so, I can mix in some more potting soil, plant another six weeks of annuals, until the pots go fallow towards the end of October, or even through February - when the rhizomes sprout again!

But it's a whole different thing when they're in the ground, have to fear the rhizomes and roots go very deep and have drained the soil.

Josh

Reply to
zzznot

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