4'o clock flowers - Dispose
Q:	I visited my daughter in Athens and was shocked at the massive amount of 4 o'clock flowers. They have taken over her pond, the yard, etc. Without hand-digging all of those tubers, how do we get rid of them?
A:	Rural families throughout the South have appreciated four o'clocks, Mirabilis jalapa, for more than two hundred years. Pretty pink/yellow/red flowers adorn the shrub from early summer until frost. The roots are perennial in most parts of Georgia and the seed germinate readily. What's not to like? Well, as anyone who has grown them will testify, four o'clocks, once established, are the very devil to get rid of. I have a tuber in my flower garden from which I have snapped the lanky stems for two years. Yet it comes back each spring, gaily asking, "Hey, I'm back. Did you miss me?" I think the only option for your daughter is to dig any tubers she can find and spray all emerging sprouts with herbicide in spring.