My first introduction to Evening Primrose was entirely an accident. A year after filling a garden bed with purchased topsoil I noticed an odd little rosette making an appearance between my kale. Over the winter it grew and grew, becoming larger than a dinner plate. It lacked the curious wrinkled texture of teasel and was far too big to be moth mullein. It was not a dandelion nor a thistle of any kind I had ever seen. I began to believe it was a native plant, Wyethia, which I hadn’t seen in my garden before, and thus left it alone.

I believed this until the spring, when in the blink of an eye it shot up to a height of 5 feet and began throwing out stalks festooned with bright yellow flowers, each evening radiating out an intoxicating musky perfume. I finally got the hint and realized I had been blessed with Oenothera biennis, the evening primrose.

Evening primrose is an American plant that has a long history of human use. It was widely used by Native American peoples for food and medicine and saw extensive use in European gardens. The peppery-sweet root can be roasted, baked, steamed, or boiled. In this same vein the leaves, shoots, and seed pods have been consumed when very young, though reports on their edibility varies from ‘famine food’ to delicacy. They are probably best eaten cooked and in moderation. The raw flowers have a sweet taste and can be used in salads and as garnish.

Perhaps the most famous use of evening primrose is of the seed, in the form of oil. The seed can be directly consumed, like poppy seeds, but is most commonly pressed for oil. It is well-known to contain large amounts of gamma-linoleic acid, hard to find in other foods. This oil is used in health products and (rarely) in cuisine.

Evening primrose oil is rather hard to come by because the seed is very tiny and it can be difficult to mechanically harvest sufficient amounts of it. Seed tends to ripen unevenly, as one might expect with a crop that is not fully domesticated. For the home grower, however, the seed is easily extracted by simply cutting off the stalks once the seed pods begin to split. The seeds stay well-contained in the pods, even once they begin to open, and the entire stalk can be put upside-down in a bucket to dry. As the plant dries the pods will open, releasing more seeds. Once the stalk is completely dry it can be crushed to yield the remaining seeds. Once plant can produce quite a bit of seed — in my experience, a single plant yielded more than a cup of the tiny seeds.

With minimal effort a home grower can harvest a fairly large amount of seeds, which are a valuable food source. Much like amaranth, evening primrose has the potential to be an excellent seed crop for those interested in producing more of their own food without expensive and polluting machinery. The availability of small-scale oil presses could even allow the production of small amounts of evening primrose oil at home, making hyper-local oil production easier.

This oil is what is commonly used as an herbal medicine, though the whole plant has been used as medicine. The oil is widely sold as a supplement, perhaps best known as a potential treatment for multiple sclerosis, eczema, and PMS. Some preliminary research supports these uses, though as with many herbal remedies more research is needed.

Cultivation

Evening primrose is a very weedy species that is able to persist through drought and cold, perhaps thanks to the long taproot that makes it such a good vegetable. In the garden this can lead to self-seeding, which is easy to control by weeding. It is an undemanding plant that can be planted and forgotten about, a noble trait in a plant so valuable as a source of food and medicine. It is relatively free of pests and does not require much in the way of fertilizer, simply demanding a sunny location and some occasional water during dry spells. Plant this species during cool weather, as it grows best at lower temperatures and will become lanky and unsightly if grown in the heat.

This plant has other benefits in the garden as well. It is quite attractive to pollinators (those active in the evening and night, however) and serves as a host plant for several species of moth. Birds eat the seeds and use the plants as cover. The fragrance of evening primrose lends itself to gardens near patios and hot tubs, where people are active in the evening. The plant itself is very attractive and, as a native species in much of the US, well-suited for naturalistic plantings and wildlife gardens. It can be used in more formal plantings as well, especially when used in mass.

The evening primrose has it all: good looks, fragrance, and usefulness as a vegetable, seed and oil crop, and as medicine. As a crop for an uncertain future, marked with scarcity, evening primrose stands out for it’s nutritional value and ease of cultivation. It may not be a popular garden plant now but its moment is coming — a well deserved moment indeed.