Am I too late?

After collecting all kinds of morning glory seeds, including JMGs, I only just put out pots of seeds which have germinated quite well. My question is that since I live in zone 7, will I be able to get flowers on the vines after sowing them so late? We usually don't get our first frost until late October.

Gloria, my guess is yes, you will get seeds.

Jackie

Gloria,
I planted my seed just month ago and they are already blooming. They grow fast in some parts of my garden and slower in others. Its weird. They like lots of water to get established. And perfer full sun.
Lesh

Well nothing ventured, nothing gained I would not hesitate to try. And you just might get seed and if not you will have enjoyed the blooms so it shouldn't be a total loss.

Let us know what happens and that will let us know it can be done. :o)

Dee

Gloria, I only sowed mine on June 20, so have been anxious about whether that was too late, too. Thanks to EmmaGrace, Ron_Convolvulaceae and Ansonfan, I have 18 different strains of JMGs and species coming along. I'm going to keep one pot of each non-cold-hardy ones to winter over indoors like Janet does in Sweden, just in case.

Good thing they like this weather - will be watching this thread, too.

Hi Karen! I haven't forgotten you! LOL!! I have finally gotten things back on track and I now want to grow some mg's. Here it is mid-July. Should I wait til next year to start growing these beauties?
Melanie

Hi Melanie,

Sometimes "back on track" seems like a receding dream - LOL. I wouldn't know how to act.

Anyhoo, in a 'to sow or not to sow' context, I was saying NOW yesterday when my browser quit while responding to you.

My vote goes to sowing them now, because

1) After soaking them for 12 hours in a 50:50 solution of hydrogen peroxide (H202) to water, half or most of the JMGs traded to me by EmmaGrace last summer germinated within 5 days. Ipomoea turbinata began to germinate within 12 hours. (If anyone wants to know how they all did or did not germinate, let me know - slowpokes are in the refrigerator.)

2) I suspect your autumn frost might be far enough away that you could get some flowers. (As to whether seeds would mature, I don't dare to guess.)

3) I often prefer experiment to common sense.

Just in case, I plan to do what Janet does in Sweden and try to overwinter some in pots indoors under grow lights.

This forum has a great digital, online, free book on morning glories by Dr. Yoneda:

http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/Asagao/Yoneda_DB/E/Introduction/htmls/contents.html

I'll check and see if it'll be allright to share seed-saving info I received thru a dmail.

I'm learning as I go, here - am no more an expert than I am on track - so, hopefully resident experts will set me straight when I goof.

This message was edited Jul 18, 2006 6:23 PM

Hey Karen,
You should have gotten way more than 50% germination. Send me you email address and I'll send you a word doc. on how I germinate my seeds using coffee filter/zippy bag method. Works like a charm, but then, I like to 'see' my MG roots BEFORE I plant them.

I get about 98% to 99% germination rate on my JMG's, and other commons.
Different story on the 'Exotic MG's'. Different methods.

Emma
emma.grace@cox.net

PS:

My seeds also germinate within 24-hours. 48 Max.
If I have to leave them in my zippy bag longer until I can get to them, I've gotten seeds with a 2" root sprout on them.

Emma

Thanks, Emma. Eventually, all - or just -1 - within each JMG group germinated. The Yojiro baby blue and pale pink germinated 100% within 24 hours, and the last JMG to germinate was 'Cameo Elegance' at 100% within 2 weeks.

The recalcitrants are species from Ron that are cold-hardy to our winters and are residing for a spell in the downstairs frig: Ipomoea amnicola, Evolvulus nuttallianus and Jacquemontia pringlei.

The differences among the ones he sent that did germinate are just amazing - Ron is turning my garden into a kind of a Galapagos Island. Just as Darwin noted the differences in the finches of that island while developing his theory of natural selection, the differences of morning glory species and cultivars in my garden thanks to you folks are another stunning revelation of that theory.

Remember, in the Ipomoea pandurata thread, where Ron pointed out the pattern of 3 ridges and 2 grooves on the outside of the sepals and buds? Well, the leaf vein pattern of the first two, non-true leaves to appear when I. pandurata germinates echoes that pattern. Those first two leaves are an unusual, very dark green, and each leaf is indented down the center almost all the way to the leaf stalk into two lobes. Most of the first two leaves to emerge from the other morning glories don't do that.

Some seedlings of Ipomoea turbinata have little toothy spikes along their stems and some don't - Gothic Moonflower! Who would have thought?

Karen or Emma, is Cameo Elegance and Cinnabar the same?The pictures look the same. Like I said before, I'm new at this.
Melanie

Melanie, I had a computer crash and my databases and research are inaccessible to me right now. So - sheepishly toeing the ground - all I can say right now is that Cameo Elegance is known by other names, but they are eluding me right now.

I understand that Cameo Elegance is supposed to be a smaller-growing morning glory to about 4' - 6' tall, with elegantly variegated leaves of cream and green and red flowers on the blue side of the spectrum (like crimson) as opposed to the yellow side which is where scarlet resides.

Hope that helps.

Those are what I have started plus the Rose and Chocolate Silk that you sent me. I just hope that I can get some blooms since I am starting so late in the season!
Thanks so much for your help.
Melanie

Melanie,
I personally have found no difference between these MG's

Cameo Elegance
Mini Bar Rose
Beni Shibori [Japanese Morning Glory]
Tsubame [Japanese Morning Glory]

They all have a small bloom 2" to 3" that is a Bright Rose-Red Color. The foliage is Green and White Ivy-Shaped. Foliage is Beautiful! And, they are all short climbers - guessing 3' to 6' max.

If anyone else can offer some differences, I'd love to know.

Photo is of my Cameo Elegance from last year.

Thanks,
Emma

Thanks so much Emma, It's so pretty.
Melanie

meag848 and Emma - I've seen differences in the types that Emma mentioned...some plants will have very small leaves that are smaller than and/or not much bigger than the blooms>no mater how big or mature the plants gets or what size container they are grown in......and some plants have leaves that are almost always at least several times the diameter of the blooms...

The plants that have the dwarfed leaves also tend to produce very small seeds(about the size of small purpurea),while the plants with the largest leaves also produce the largest seeds that look like standard Ipomoea hederacea seeds...

TTY,...

Ron

Thanks Ron,
Emma

All three of you, thank you.

Ron, I now have some seeds ripened from last summer of Ipomoea hederacea (gathered from chain link fence surrounding local ex-mill by neighbor and now naturalized in our hedge) and Ipomoea 'Cameo Elegance' (from vines grown from Emma's seed). The leaves of our Cameo Elegance were several times the diameter of the flowers, but smaller than I. hederacea. But the seeds of Cameo Elegance look very different from those of I. hederacea. They are much smaller and also have a dark reddish brown color instead of black. In fact, the seeds of I. hederacea are large and velvety black, very much like the seeds of I. nil 'Hatsu Arashi'. Is all this within normal parameters of variation for these plants?

There are some things about these names that are confusing to me, and probably confusions within those I'm not conscious of. If Ipomoea yojiro = I. nil x I. purpurea, then isn't there some appellation on a par with that that acknowledges I. hederacea x I. purpurea as a distinct kind of cross in its own right, too? Or, is I. imperialis how I. hederacea x I. purpurea is referred to because MGs in that group have a genetic background too ambiguous to name it anything else?

Emma, since you were the one to give me all these JMG seeds in the first place, I am going to be mailing you back fresh replacements in a few days, as well as Ron, without whose advice about ripening seed on their stems indoors after frost I would not have any seed right now. If anyone else would like my seed, dmail me next October and we'll see if I will have had a better harvest of seed then.

Thank you all for an extraordinary summer.

Thanks Karen,
I will look forward to them. Hopefully you grew some that I didn't get to grow this year.
Well, see what I mean. Here it is almost 10:30 and now I can't even think straight enough to write you back tonight - So don't give up on me.
Emma

Not thinking straight? LOL - there should be sensors on my 'pooter that can detect certain levels of "muddle-ness" when I try to key a "thought" with some sort of bell-and-whistle warning. Not to worry. I just wrote you back. You're welcome about the seeds.

It really was amazing watching the differences between varieties of I. purpurea, I. nil and then their cross, I. yojiro. The I. nil varieties had terrible problems with rust and mildew, but such flowers to swoon over. The I. purpurea variety was healthy as a hog on steroids and lovely in its own way. But what a surprise to see - on the I. yojiro - flowers of the I. nil quality, but leaves so healthy and flowers so much more prolific and generous setting seed. I know which seed came from the vine that especially exemplified that, so you might find those useful.

Nope, nobody's giving up on anybody.

bluespiral - Dr.Yoneda called the Ipomoea nil x Ipomoea purpurea the youjiro...He didn't designate any similar name for the Ipomoea hederacea x Ipomoea purpurea hybrids...youjiro being the name used to refer to the hybrid group,although the term youjiro is defintely not a species epithet...


The Ipomoea hederacea can have a range of seed size and degree of slight fuzzines...the cultivar being called Minibar Rose can definitely have large seeds...and a very dark brown >bordering on black...

The variations you describe are all part of what I had noted in an earlier thread on the seed and leaf variations in color and size...

TTY,...

Ron

This message was edited Dec 14, 2006 3:32 AM

Thanks Ron. I'll refer to I. yourjiro in the future with that spelling, but hope you won't mind the spelling I already used on the seed labels I'm sending you. Am hoping to get them off in the mail in the am and need to tend to some family doings.