Ron! ... L@@K ... Acapulco Blue Morning Glory is Blooming

Karen, your father was probably referring to the idea that a vine growing up the side of a building retains moisture and slows the drying of the structure after getting wet - from rain or dew. This will accellerate the deterioration of the structure, siding and/or roof - especially if they are made from wood products. There are those who will argue that the vine protects the structure and keeps the moisture from getting to the wood!....have you ever heard of the roofs completely covered with moss and lasting 50 years!

One can minimize this by having the string, wire, welded wire or latice spaced well away from the wall or fence to allow for air circulation - such as is described by Jackie and Emma above.

Arlan

Emma, did you ever get your cuttings you brought back to bloom? The ones you sent me had finally rooted, but then the cats got in my greenhouse and knocked the pot over, in the dead heat of summer no less, and they were cooked before I could recover them. I'm curious to see what you got!

Hi Stacey,
OOOH NOOOO!
I'm so sorry you lost that beauty.

I do still have two that are hanging on.
This summer all they did was shoot out leaves with no other growth. I didn't take care of them as I should have with all of the MGs I had growing, but they are still with me. Still have them in containers and over-wintering them. Next year I plan to put one in the ground to see what they will do.

Emma

Hi Emma
Finally got a picture of my MG vine just before the freeze in early December. This is not a closeup, so not sure how much you can tell about the actual bloom - but this is the one I didn't think was ever going to bloom.
Mary - in Grand Prairie, near Dallas.

The vine looks pretty pathetic down low - it got LOADED with aphids - and tried several organic sprays - one with orange oil, which I think was too strong. But the blooms were so beautiful, I just let it keep going. This is the first Morning Glory I have ever had - well, one of same variety out back, but it didn't survive the summer heat.

maryyx - looks like you have Ipomoea tricolor Heavenly Blue...glad you were able to enjoy it to some degree...

TTY,...

Ron

Hi Mary,
Thanks for sharing your photo.
Ron may be right that it is Heavenly Blue. The way your leaves are curled up makes it hard to tell, plus can't see the blooms well. If they didn't have yellow in the very center and the leaves were variegated tri-lobed, they could be Silky Blue Blooms.

Glad you enjoyed them, what ever they are.

I too had REALLY HUGE aphid problems last year. They just sucked the life out of almost all of my MG leaves. Worst battle I can ever remember with those little monsters.

Emma

Here is one of my Silky Blue Blooms.

Emma, Love the ruffled silky blue. It's a beauty.

Jackie

Your 'ruffled' silky blue is out of this world!!!!!! Love it!!!!!!!!

Louanne

Thanks Jackie and Louanne,
I've really enjoyed growing 'Silky Blue'.
Louanne, I'll add some to the other seeds I'll be sending to you.

Jackie do I owe you seeds?
Be happy to send them.

I'm trying to get all of my promised seeds out now as I'm wading through the deep pile. *ha*

Emma

Emma, I wish you owed me seeds, but you don't. LOL

wonderful thread, everyone - certainly makes April seem a lot closer.

Arlan, well, Dad's toolshed didn't have a slate roof, so I see your point. I guess, when I was little, visiting the southern farm Dad was born on, I just assumed outbuildings were supposed to be old and creaky - practically part of the earth they were subsiding into. To me, that will always be a standard of well-being to me - along with the dirt floors, mooing calves, and oodles of kitties running around. My New England grandmother would have had morning glories on those ancient edifices in a trice.

April feels very far away tonight with this freezing weather! My consolation is that I have 9 seeds started indoors.

*sigh*

Update on Acapulco Blue....

These are photos that I took cuttings of just before our first frost at the end of November. Not knowing what they would do, I only took a few cuttings - knowing what I know now then - I would have ripped down the entire vines and cut them up. They all rooted VERY easily and VERY quickly.

I have a couple of photos of the blooms that came out on the cuttings as I had them sitting in a jar rooting.
They rooted within one week. Two weeks later the roots were 'massive'.

Emma

Closer shot of the same bloom

Backside

Slightly different angle - same bloom

Leaves and Stems

More Leaves and Stems

Finally rooted cuttings after one week
These are now planted in containers in my outside building, sitting on a window ledge.
Last time I checked them they seemed happy, so let's see if I can get them through the winter.

Now, we know they root VERY EASILY.

Emma

Fantastic! I'm sure they will do well for you this year.
Louanne

Wow...

They don't seem smooth enough to be the strain of I. indica I've gotten from Florida, nor hairy enough for the strain that grows around here, OR hairy enough to be I. nil, but strangely enough, seem like a cross between the two, which is just my opinion. I've never seen one quite like it. I must grow these seeds this year! I wonder if it could function like English Ivy, only with more color?

Interesting observation, Stacey.
Unfortunantly, I wasn't able to get any other photos that Ron wanted to see before the frost hit.
No seed pods at all, BUT, I haven't climbed that ladder yet to see what is at the top...lol

I'll dig back through my photos of the Mother Plant in Acapulco and see if I got any decent pictures of the pods and post them.

Also, didn't get to do any cross-pollinating as Ron suggested either.
Just too late in the season.

We will see what they do this year.

Emma


Emma

You sent me some seeds, but like everything else, I just haven't gotten to them yet. I need a plant to take over a portion of my yard, and if I can do it with a MG, I'd love to! For some reason, the I. indica I had on my mailbox has seemingly bit the dust, although I am looking for signs of life elsewhere in the ditch. Who knew I could kill an indica, of all things??

Beautiful, Emma! I can't remember if you told us, but why did you take cuttings of it?
:) Donna

Probably because she lives farther north than me, and anything left outside will freeze...

Donna and Stacey,
I took the cuttings just to see if they would root mainly.
Another reason was to hopefully keep them alive if they did root over the winter so they could have a head start for this year - again, to see what they will do with more of a growing year in my zone.

The vines, I did start in late spring, but they sat around in small containers like a lot of others until I 'finally' got around to putting them in the ground. We were in the middle of amending some of our beds and I didn't know what to plant where.

I didn't take any measures to cover the base of the plants as I probably should have - just in case they do survive our mild winters. Guess I'll know in the spring.

Maybe if enough of us get them growing in different areas, we can learn more about this particular species, remembering that it came from Zone 11 where the temps stay pretty much the same year around.

Emma

I wonder if it will come back. I know I. indica will freeze back here, but always comes back in the spring just as lush and aggressive as before. Many times it's just the leaves lost, but the stems survive.

The seeds look more like purpureas or yogiro hybrids. I have never seen indica seeds. You might have some kind of hybrid there. Rooting easily like that makes me think of indicas.

It is pretty and I`ll try it out. I will try some crosses and report back what happens. If you want I`ll send you some seeds from pods that take if you like.

Here are indica seeds, if you've never seen them.

a better shot

Hey Beth - What part of the world are you Ipomoea indica seeds from...just curious...

Stacey, I have indicas in several spots and they too die back and bounce back each spring with even more vigor. Right now in some of the covered areas the leaves are still green. Mine do not produce seeds. I have a couple of other different species that I am growing in containers and a couple of different seeds to germinate to see if they will cross pollinate and produce seeds for me.
Going to do the same with the I. panduratas that I have.

Karen, Of course, we will be very interested to see what some of your hybrids do this year with these guys.

Beth, Thanks for sharing the photos of the indica seeds.

Edited to say...
I back clicked and it left part of my message off without me noticing. . .

Since we are talking about I. indicas, I wanted to show off this one single bloom from one of my I. indica vines from last year.
It has a Bright White Single Streak.

Isn't this grand!

Emma


This message was edited Jan 24, 2007 5:18 PM

Another photo of same bloom

Is that flower from the Alcapulco Blue?

No, this is from my I. indica.
Also, it was taken in early afternoon. You can see the Blue starting to turn colors at the edges.

It has a white streak on it. Very interesting!

Yes,
I just edited my message above that didn't process for me at first before I noticed it didn't have my explanation.

Yes, one single White Streak. Isn't that strange!

I did dig up that vine and moved it to another spot, but won't know until this spring if it lives.
I should have rooted cuttings from that shoot, but didn't even think about it at the time.

Emma

The indica seeds are from a plant growing in the US...I don't know where it came from before that. The lady selling them said the plant has been growing for her for years, and for some reason just this year it decided to make only two seedpods. She was suprised because it has never seeded in the past.
Beth

Supposedly, there's a white form in the Florida Keys, but I didn't see it when I was there. I only saw the blue one, and my friends thought I was crazy for getting those!