Nice Legs, Shame About the Face was a minor 1979 hit for British faux punks The Monks. The song’s key refrain lamented how a female’s facial features failed to match the promise of her lower limbs.
The band turned out to be one-hit wonders, in a turn of events that can be easily summed up with the words ‘nice debut single, shame about the follow-up’, as their mildly misogynistic novelty pop turned out to be a career highlight.
This unfortunate song sprung to mind recently as I sought to describe Oenothera biennis, the common evening primrose. A plant with such an evocative name, bright yellow flowers with a heavenly smell would appear to have plenty going for it, yet ultimately it is let down by an ungainly habit and blooms that ‘ball’ (as roses do) too quickly. Nice scent, shame about the flowers, and the rest.
It’s hard plant to dislike for a lot of reasons but also a difficult one to love – and if your preference is for order and formality you may as well stop reading now.
Native to North America, Oenothera biennis is now widespread throughout Britain and Ireland, having been first introduced as a garden plant around 400 years ago. It’s an unfussy, liberally self-seeding biennial that tends to grow on ‘wasteground’, verges and other neglected places but is also a favourite among wildlife and cottage gardeners.
Growing more than a metre high with sporadic flowers from June through to September, this is not a plant that you plan with, or for. It tends to grow successfully on its own terms and while persistent, it is not invasive and therefore easily controlled.
Evening primrose – Coinneal oíche, as Gaeilge – tends to be better known for its medicinal properties than its horticultural use. Used historically as a ‘cure’ for baldness and general pain relief, evening primrose oil made from the plant’s seeds is widely used today for regulating hormone levels and relieving premenstrual stress and menopause symptoms.
As its name suggests, the scent is strongest from the flowers in the latter part of the day, making Oenothera biennis an important plant for those pollinators that work nights.
With much of the focus on bees, the role played by moths and is often overlooked when it comes to ensuring a garden is wildlife friendly.
There are some 1,500 species of moth in Ireland, with favoured habitats as varied as bogs, beaches, mountains and wetland. Some, such as the tiger moth and six-spot burnet moth, can be quite eye-catching, and often spotted during the day.
Evening primrose, along with the nectar-rich Nicotiana alata, the tobacco plant, jasmine and honeysuckle, can be relied to to boost their scent output once the sun drops and therefore be more amenable to moths.
If you can’t afford to let Oenothera biennis find its own spot in the garden, it is easily raised from seed. Seed can be collected from plants from August onwards and sown in late autumn or early spring, either in pots or seed trays, or directly onto the earth where you want them to grow.
Be sure to plant out the young plants in their first year as they will develop a tap root that is easily damaged when transplanting.
