Morning Glories

Now that the temperatures are cooling off, the morning glories are taking off!

I have them growing in two large rectangular boxes, trellised happily up two wooden frames that my husband mounted to the brick facing of the house.

Morning glories, and their night-loving counterpart moonflowers, are an annual vining plant. They are PROLIFIC growers, and will actually grow through and up other plants if you let them. Don't be shy about redirecting or pruning away any vines that you find misbehaving. This is a hardy plant.

Flowers tend to be large, and vary in color. The classic blue is my personal favorite, but there is an array of color variations available. It's a bit hard to spot in the photo, but I have four all growing together (blue, pink, white/purple picotee, white moonflower).

They grow quite tall. Mine are at about the six foot mark. I have an idea that if I had more trellis, they would be taller. Morning glory doesn't stick or cling to surfaces as ivy does. They twist their vines around structures to support themselves, so you'll need to give them something to twirl around. In my experience the vines are nowhere near as heavy as some other vines like trumpet vine or climbing roses, but don't give them too flimsy a trellis either. Mine are a mid-weight wood. Forget those cheap, stapled trellises. They won't do.

As far as growing them goes, you start from seed.  Any store that sells seeds is likely to have them in many colors.  Direct sow them into the soil in the spring, preferably after danger of frost is over.  Well draining soil is always best, but I have found that morning glory is not terribly fussy.  Water them well, and that's usually all it takes. I actually grow these on a west-facing wall, where the afternoon sun is brutal. The vines struggled through those 100 degree summer months that kicked all our butts, but erupted as soon as the nights dipped below 90 degrees. Vines grow and leaf out so thickly that they actually shade themselves from the sun and usually do just fine on what I like to call my Front Walk of Burning Death.  I have never heard of or experienced morning glory roots destroying walkways or foundations.  I plant mine in planters anyway just in case.

The plant is an annual, and will die back with a hard frost.  You'll notice a ton of seeds drop off the vines as you pull them off their trellises for the year.  Gather as many up as you like.  If you store them in a cool, dry, and preferably dark place, they should be fine for planting again in the spring.  Resowing may not even be necessary, as morning glory will often reseed itself from the seeds that you missed when you cleared the dead vines away. That's good and bad. You'll save a bit of money when they re-sprout. The bad? They never just sprout in the area where you originally planted them. Never. You will be pulling little morning glory shoots out from undesirable spots on a regular basis. Clipping the flowers off before they seed helps, but will not eliminate the problem. I love the heart-shaped leaves and bright flowers so much, that I don't consider this to be a big issue. I pull out the shoots along with any other weed that I find. It's a small price to pay for such a beautiful plant.

Happy Gardening!