Morning Glory Support

Here is a view of part of my morning glory garden. It will contain about 120 of my plants. Another 40-50 will be in other areas. I created three rows with posts and strung a tight wire between the posts. I cut cane, which is a locally growing tall, stout grass, a lot like bamboo, for the plants to climb. Each cane is fastened to the wire which keeps everything in line and adds additional support. Most of the cane is approximately 10 feet tall which should be adequate for most plants.

My one concern is that the cane may not be strong enough to support a tall wet plant in the wind....the cane is strong, but not as strong as bamboo. Each stake is 18 inches apart and I will keep each vine contained to one cane. I will probably have to manually tie the branching vines to contain them.

The barn in the background is another unfinished project....!

Arlan

Arlan, Nice set-up. Incredible amount of work on your part. Looking
forward to all the great pics you'll be sharing.

Jackie

Aarlan,.............I am so old that this looks like an infinite amount of work. We might need the barn for a hoe down. For mg lovers that is is. Frank

I love it!!

Arlan - I think your concern about the combination of the plant weight and wind/rain factor is a valid concern...you might need to re-inforce with 'something'...

Also wondering if the plants are going to produce any inhibiting shade when they are very filled in...what is the exposure relative to the sun(?)...

TTY,...

Ron

Is the soil without many rocks? You could drive in some rebar to give structure to the base of each cane, maybe?

Joseph

Thanks everyone...

Jackie - it has been a lot of work....but I can plan all week when I'm traveling and then work like crazy the two days I'm home! Photography is one of the main reasons I grow MG's...along with the garden therapy, and the genetics...and the anticipation of new crosses blooming....and...a huge bloom struggling under a heavy dew load...

Frank - The upstairs of the shop/barn will be my studio....12x20....plenty of room for the MG hoe down!

Ron & Joseph - The fresh cane is really quite strong. Last year I had only the center row. I had top and bottom wires and zig-zagged string up and down for support of the vines. That worked fine...except that the top wire sagged under the weight of all of the vines. The top wire of the center row is about 7.5 feet up and by sticking the cane in the ground and securing it to the top wire it is very stable... the cane will support the vertical weight and the wire gives lateral support. the real concern is the other two rows, which have the wire only about 5 feet up. A very long cane (10 ft), secured at 5 feet to a wire causes a real potential breaking point at the wire after the vine (weight) gets high above, creating a "sail".... I may reinforce a section of the cane at the wire, but I'm leaning more to just shortening the canes to maybe 7 ft on these rows to reduce the potential breakage and deal with suspending vines back upon themselves as/(if) they grow above the top. A lot of my plants will be shorter growers anyway..

My whole motivation with the cane is monetary! When I started pricing 200 tall stakes of any material...the bill added up fast! I didn't find a handy source for long bamboo, but thought of the cane, and it is free! I think it will work.... we'll see!

The rows are oriented north to south and about 4 feet apart, so each side of each row should get adequate sunshine, particularly the mid 6 hours of the day.

Arlan

Nice!Set up.You will be able to grow all kinds of MG.

I can't wait to see pictures at each stage of growth! What a monumental project you've taken on, hats off.

Very cool Arlan - can hardly wait to see the pix of your morning glory masses!

Joanne

Arlan
Beautifully kept property. Nice looking soil. And it is flat. If my property were that flat there certainly wouldn't be blackberries growing everywhere.

How about letting us in on the growing out the crosses you made last year.
That really sounds interesting. Frank

How picturesque ! And I assume you will be submitting your pictures of the beautiful MGs with the barn in the background to a magazine cover somewhere ? LOL. Can't wait to see them !

Arlan,
That is a great setup and space saver too. I may just cook up a little version of yours.

If you double the wire up on the top row, maybe just an inche apart, that second wire may hold up half the weight. I was thinking of using those cattle panels we got, but I would have no way to control where each vine goes.. I like your individual cane idea.

A.

Hey Arlan, I like your set up. I have a few garden pics I`d like to share with you. I have to go make some of the stuff first lol :)

The soil in the garden is very sandy, with very little organic matter. I have been adding lots of oak leaves from the yard and compost from the local landfill..(2 pick up loads). I'm using a pine straw mulch on about half of the garden in an attempt to reduce water requirements and stabilize moisture levels in the root zones. I think it should perform better this year than last.

The garden structures and preparation have actually turned out to be a small effort when I compare the time required to document all the plants I'm growing this year. I started documenting every seedling with pictures of the cotyledons and first leaves as they develop. I really enjoy this "keeping track of stuff" aspect of this hobby and the most challenging part if it is keeping proper plant identity for each picture in the camera...especially when I can take well over 100 pictures at a time. I crop each picture to its most important information and then upload them to my Ipomoea Journal.

The journal is a bit cumbersome to navigate (as is this rambling!) as I have it organized by seed lot families, which may or may not be intuitively obvious! Each category has the seed lot number first, followed by either the variety name claimed(!) by the source or the individual specimen number of the source plant. Each seed lot category is nested under its pod parent's category. Each seedling gets a number and is an item in the appropriate seedlot category. So that I can track seed and each plant to the exact plant (or cross) it came from, I use the seedlot number as part of the individual specimen number.

Here is a link to my Ipomoea journal: http://davesgarden.com/journal/j/sj/atenkley/2648/

I have no way to easily show y'all only this year's plants, as guests cannot sort or filter all items by status.... You will see that I have many seed lots that I am not growing this year...I did have great intentions of growing my I. purpurea this year.....but...I ran out of room!

I'll continue posting updates to this journal each weekend so you will be able to see a pictoral history of each plant.

That's the plan! - Arlan