All sources I've referred to also say annual. But my garden didn't read those books and the ornamental purslane came up year after year in the ground.

TY, Vicki & Becky! Becky, I was asking about P. amilis in particular. Just to make sure, is that what you're referring to by ornamental purslane?

Mine were mostly P. Umbraticola.

Feat your eyes on this my friends:

https://www.google.com/search?...

I just lusted big time!!

Yes, those are awesome too, I mentioned them up-thread. (That's what's in the pic you showed Jun 17, 2015 12:47 PM CDT.)

After some good rains the past few days, these are filling up & out well, blooming more, with the store-bought moss roses. Pics from this morning.




This spot is in the back:

Today was the day when I finally saw what I had in my minds' eye when I started this little project. I went out about 7 AM & looked at stuff but the Portulaca had no open blooms at all. Drank a little coffee & went back out at 8 and BAM - open flowers everywhere!

This is so exciting! Pics don't do it justice, but here's a few:

Tiffany is doing the happy dance!! How fun! Do you eat your newer stems in salads etc?

They call purslane the 9 to 5 bloom.

TY, TY & LOL! I was thinking this species should be called "8'o'clocks." Um, if one is not home all day, this could be disappointing except on the weekend. Would probably depend on if one likes an early AM or evening stroll through the yard most days, or just mostly on weekends. I guess as long as they're open when one leaves in the morning, they'd be a good pass-by plant on the way to car.

I'm so excited! In person, the "sea of pink" is so much more noticeable.

I guess I should taste some, but I'm as brainwashed as the average American. It just doesn't look like food, though I've yet to encounter an edible plant I really hate except arugula lettuce.

I tried it and I found I liked it. It is nice in a salad.

Beautiful Tiffany

I think these are both Portulaca, but the one on the left is a native weed here. Sometimes I let it take over the entire bed. Somewhere there's a photo of it doing that, but I can't find it. The little blooms on the native will fold up in early afternoon, but the red cultivar will stay open until night. I bought a yellow one for a container and the red one appeared. I dug it out and planted it here. I can't get the potted ones to have the nice foliage of this 'in ground' one. If the cultivars would put on the quantity of blooms the native does, it would be quite the show.

TY, Sandra & Vic! Those are great, Donald! Are the pink ones P. pilosa?

By noon, the flowers that were open this morning were all closed... those are really short-lived blooms! Guess I should see if they open/close fast enough to watch.

I don't know, Tiffany. Here's a photo from 2013 when I let it take over the entire bed . It looks a lot better than the poor iris in the high temps of a drought summer. The iris pretty much go dormant in the summer anyway (these are arilbred iris) and too much water on them is not good, so these plants make a nice, cooling cover. There are three natives here and I've grown all three in containers. This one worked the best. The others are purslane - I think. One is commonly called pigweed and has yellow flowers and is capable of making a dense mat of foliage. The other isn't as aggressive as a grower and has larger, orange blooms that I like a lot. As container plants, the ones I think are purslane didn't last as long or look good as long as this one in the photo did. It lasts until frost knocks it down. The others seemed to do their thing until they made a lot of seed and then got ratty. I should have photos of those too, but I can't find them either. I have too many photos and too many folders.

It is portulaca and some very beautiful ones at that. Look at the leaves if they are long and pointed then a portulaca. If they are round then it is a purslane.
Portulaca


Purslane

So enjoying all these photo's

purpleinopp said:TY, Sandra & Vic! Those are great, Donald! Are the pink ones P. pilosa?

By noon, the flowers that were open this morning were all closed... those are really short-lived blooms! Guess I should see if they open/close fast enough to watch.

I've been studying the database photos. The one that grows here looks like P. pilosa blooms and the blooms are shortlived, closing by early afternoon. But mine has more needle shaped leaves than is indicated in any database photo. The leaves just don't look the same, so I'm guessing it's probably not P. pilosa unless it's a variant.

Edited. Everywhere I wrot P. pilosa should have been P. amilis! I'm brain dead sometimes. I looked at amilis and was going to check out pilosa in the database and hadn't done that when I wrote this post.