Winter 2010-2011: Growing plants under lights indoors!

Love that shade of blue, just the tiniest hint of turquoise, I'm guessing!

It does seem like there is a hint of turquoise. I think the main cause might be the light reflecting off of the yellow-green, variegated leaves. What's really intriguing to me is how quickly the flower buds went from a burgundy-violet coloration to what you see in the photo. I hope to capture that color transition in a sequence of photos soon.

Photo of bud in foreground with bloom for color comparison.

Yes, you're right, closer to a true sky blue...lovely shade!

Amazing how the spent blooms turn a totally different color; even though I've spent over 50 years observing gardens, the color shifts still are a source of wonder.

Great color nifty

I've experienced drastic color changes from open bloom to shriveled flowers, too. . . but, such a dramatic change in color from bud to bloom within possibly an hour or two is mesmerizing.
I'm very curious to understand what chemical process is at work to cause the rapid transformation.

If anyone has any insight on the latter color change (red bud to blue flower), please share!

edited to add: I think I may have found the answer to my query. . .

"Petal color change in morning glory. . . from red to blue, during the flower-opening period is due to an unusual increase in vacuolar pH (pHv) from 6.6 to 7.7 in colored epidermal cells. We clarified that this pHv increase is involved in tonoplast-localized Na+/H+ exchanger (NHX). However, the mechanism of pHv increase and the physiological role of NHX1 in petal cells have remained obscure. In this study, synchrony of petal-color change from red to blue, pHv increase, K+ accumulation, and cell expansion growth during flower-opening period were examined with special reference to ItNHX1. We concluded that ItNHX1 exchanges K+, but not Na+, with H+ to accumulate an ionic osmoticum in the vacuole, which is then followed by cell expansion growth. This function may lead to full opening of petals with a characteristic blue color."

Found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19521056



This message was edited Dec 24, 2010 4:21 PM

Another reason MGs are special!

Excellent post, Nifty :) Thank you

Karen

I like that Pretty blue, nifty...
How interesting the informational study is.

Nifty - Beautiful bloom photos you posted and interesting article as well. Other plant blooms also change color. Not all, but some. Thanks for sharing that tidbit of information with all of us!

my favorite color changes on a morning glory is the purple/lav I purps I grew from Ronnie. hers had color change from the get go. Almost neon so vivid.

'Seiun' blooming this morning. . .

Beautiful bloom and leaves

Very nice blooms! I have photos of some of mine, but my computer is acting up. I change the time battery in it in hopes that it may solve the problem, but the system is still acting up! Ran two different virus scans on it and it was clean. The computer is 10 years old, so it may be on it's last leg. (sigh)

This message was edited Jan 18, 2011 11:51 PM

That is a LOVELY bloom!

I gave a stern "talk" to my indoor vines because it's been about 4 months and only a few have bloomed. Well, many are now blooming and the others have buds. Some are just loaded with blooms and buds and are even making seeds! Love it!

I take photos when I can, but work sure gets in the way of this hobby of growing them indoors. (sigh)

The vines appear pretty healthy and I've been having to prune them weekly now because they are growing so much. I am trying to keep them dwarf in size. Blooms are small because they are contained in 32 oz. cups. But at least they are finally blooming and the colors are quite nice. Some are really dark in color and others light.

Here is one of my favorites: Fuji Shibori

This is a Fuji Shibori bloom taken later in the day as the color changed.

I am rather partial to the speckled blooms as y'all know. This is Kai no Kasumi from Helena.

This is a close-up of the bloom.

This was labeled dark lavender Kikyo, but it turned out to be a speckled cross of Ten Ten from Antoinette. Perhaps a cross?

Those are beautiful!

Thanks, Debra!

This is one labeled Chocolate Picotee x Ten Ten cross from Antoinette. Love it!

This is a close-up of the blooms which hadn't opened fully when I took the photo.

Ipomoea sepacutiensis. This one has the soft thorns on it like the Brazilian MG.

Silver Wolf (F2). The bloom turned pinkish color (from a pale blue in the morning).

And this is the best looking vine of all so far. This is a NOID from Onalee's mixed JMG seed. It was actually a Japanese mixed seed package. Really a stunner. I will be growing more seeds from that pack this year.

Close-up of the blooms. Really beautiful color and stripes!

This one was labeled Black NOID from Colin. Nice solid color bloom.

This last one I named Cinnamon. It's a NOID cross from one of my baggies.

Love all your pretty blooms Becky. Partial to the no id from Onalees
mixed Japanese sds. It's a beauty.

Every photo is a gem !!!

I wish there were an easy way to establish genetic documentation, but alas, MGs share the same "shelf" with daylilies.

Our only joy comes from loving them, unconditionally.

Gorgeous blooms Becky!! So glad you are getting blooms from Kai no Kasumi too, hope you get seeds from that one cause I sure didn't get any, not a one seed. I do have a few seeds left from Onalees package if I decide to grow it. But I love seen your healthy vines!

Thanks for the words of compliments on my current vines.

I am not sure how the Japanese get those large blooms when the plants are growing in small pots. Most (but not all) vines are producing smaller blooms. If they make it to outdoors in the Spring and bloom, I suspect once transplanted, the vine and blooms will increase in size. The main question is whether or not they will last 2 more months? I haven't a clue ...

Helena - I, too, am interested to see if I get seeds from Kai no Kasumi. I have heard it is not a prolific seed producer, but I am using the pollen from it to cross pollinate some of the other vines. Speckles should be my middle name! LOL!

And I also grow daylilies from seeds and have grown an interesting collect of them from folks who have shared their crosses with me. I agree that you never know what you are going to get...

AHhhhhh gorgeous Becky.. You can certainly grow those MG babies :)

Wished I could, the japanese ones are so hard for me, the weedie ones, lol, come all over the place....but I adore them anyhow. Thanks for sending me here, got lost along the tracks I guess...lol...

Hi Clemen - Glad you are enjoying my bloom photos! I love the passiflora vines, too! :-)

Time to start a new thread: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1151797/