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a sea of pink where I haven't found time to weed - even creeping into the lawn April 01, 2024. Among the most recognizable of Texas wildflowers, competing along roadsides with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes for the title of most exuberant performer, pink evening primroses are certainly stellar in their eye-catching abundance, with large blowsy flowers carpeting whole swaths of meadowland. In my garden, I tolerate (or even welcome) many wildflowers and native plants, including those that come unbidden. I wish I could do the same for these primroses – because boy, do they make a statement! Alas, if I were to do so there wouldn't be much room for anything else in the garden – because boy, do they spread! I'm sure they seed around (why else produce such emphatic flowers?), but mostly they gain ground by extending their network of thin roots, popping up at ever greater distances from the original plants. I've found that once established they are nearly impossible to eradicate (I haven't succeeded yet in any area of the garden where they've taken hold); so the best I can do is vigilantly pull them up where I see them emerge, to keep them from smothering their neighbors. And I do secretly enjoy those flowers, even if I have no qualms about uprooting them en masse.

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