Evening Primrose - Oenothera missouriensis

Evening Primrose (Oenothera missouriensis) is a brilliant edging plant — low growing, easy to care for, and covered in large, saucer-like yellow flowers with soft, delicate petals. It’s a real hit with pollinators and also holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit for reliability and performance.

🌸 Flowering: June into the autumn

📏 Height: to 25cm

🌿Perennial

SOW
In spring, sow the seeds in pots or modules filled with seed compost. Scatter them on the surface and cover lightly with perlite or vermiculite. You can either put them in a cold frame, where they’ll take around 3 weeks to sprout, or keep them warmer at about 21°C, which speeds things up to 1–2 weeks.

GROW
When the seedlings are big enough to handle, pot them on from the modules. Eventually, plant them out in a sunny spot. The first year they’ll mostly grow and settle in, and you’ll get flowers from the second year onwards.

ENJOY
Bees and other pollinators love it, and the edible flowers make a cheerful addition to salads — a great choice for the veg plot or the front of a sunny border.