Growing And Using Evening Primrose

If you plan on growing evening primrose in your garden, you had better like it - a lot. Easily started from seed and not picky about soil conditions, this tall plant will sprout up all over the garden.

The first year the plant appears as an attractive, large, low growing rosette of leaves. In its second spring, a tall central flower stalk rises up from the middle of the rosette. True to its name, each evening two perfect, four petaled blossoms open. If you have the patience, sit by the plant at dusk, watching carefully. Slowly but irrepressibly, the blossoms open before your eyes. It is a rare glimpse of nature’s subtle beauty and magic.

The next morning, after their one night of glory, these flowers close and die. In the evening they are replaced by two new blossoms farther up the stalk. The spent flowers give rise to pods that hold numerous tiny seeds. When mature, the pods turn brown and split, dropping the seeds to the ground, or into the hand of an herbalist ready to eat them.

To grow evening primrose, in fall or early spring simply scatter seeds carelessly about. In warmer climates, the seeds may require cold stratification.

The first year root is edible, which is good to know because you will probably want to thin out the plants. Eat it raw, it has a slightly hot tang, like a radish.

To harvest the seeds, wait until much of the stalk if full or mature brown seed pods on the verge of bursting open. Shake the stalk over a cloth laid on the ground, or carefully cut the stalks and shake them inside paper bags to release the seeds.

Use the seeds in your recipes the same as you would use poppy seeds. They make a great addition to bread recipes. Mix ground seeds in with the dough or sprinkle them on the top of the crust. Or grind the seeds with olive oil, store the blend in the refrigerator, and use it in salad dressings or other recipes.

Also, evening primrose seeds are a tremendous source of gamma linolenic acid, an important essential fatty acid. Oil extracted from evening primrose seeds is often sold as a health supplement.

So if you are growing evening primrose just for its beautiful flowers, or to eat and harvest the seeds, this is a herb that should be grown in every herb garden.