Blue Silk, mini

Well, I hope this won't be the last one of my future mini....series.

Martin

2nd photo

3rd photo

I see you believe in using recycled growing pots! Nice bloom, too!

Lovely mini bloom.

Nice...I enjoy seeing the unusual blooms produced off of the beaten path...

TTY,...


Ron

Martin - Is this vine really a "mini" vine? If so, could you please define mini MG for me? I am a newbie to MGs and had not heard about miniature MGs. :-) I'm very interested! Thank you. :-)

Becky, I don't have much experience either. I would define a "mini" as a dwarf morning glory i.e., a MG with stunted growth. I haven't had much time to get into Professor Yohaneda's genetic information, but I believe there is several dwarf genes. Arlan, is another person to ask, he knows much about genetics and seems to be growing dwarfs, too. I always pick the unusual seeds from a seed packet. So I had a normal seed and a small seed to start with. Naturally, the bigger seed grew a bigger plant and because I had read in another thread that if there are two, one will tend to take over, I decided to transplant the smaller plant into another container. I moved the container to a corner where the plant would have more light because thus far it was growing in the shadow of its friend. Well, this did not change the growing behaviour of this plant, however. I had hoped it would grow faster now, but it remained comparatively tiny. I have observed another similarity to my platycodons, which are dwarfed MGs, too. The minis tend to want to flower and produce seeds and that's it whereas the normal-sized MGs produce many more flowers. We'll see if this one produces seeds, I hand pollinated it, but there was some water in the flower because it had rained the previous day. We'll have to wait and drink tea in the meanwhile...One might argue that it's a tinier plant because it came from a small seed and grows in a small container, but I have other MGs in small containers, and they grow normally...

Thanks, Martin! So there really are "dwarf" MGs! I just learned something new. Is there any particular named cultivars that are considered dwarf or mini MGs?

I have platycodons, they look like alpine gentian to me...I'll enclose a photo in a minute...
I was wondering if you live in Florida you can grow MGs the whole year round because you don't have real winter there?!

Here in Morocco they sow beans in november for spring harvest...so I was wondering if I should try MGs, too. It's worth a try anyway.

This is what the plant looked like in the afternoon. I find they easily make seeds, but then it takes a long time for them to produce more flowers, they do grow very slowly!

So, yes, there are dwarf cultivars. But theoretically and practically the dwarf genes can be combined with any normal-size MG. Because the dwarf trait is normally a recessive gene, it will only manifest if both "parents" carry this characteristics either in pure form (homozygotously) or at least 50 % (heterozygotously).

Martin

Hey Martin, I think Florida is like SoCal where it gets too hot for the MGs around august and sept. I remember mine were toast in those months and the vines were all wilted by 11AM. Spring and fall are good growing times for MGs in hot climates like that.

From now, the temperatures are gonna fall reaching an all low in January and February. We still have 25-30 degrees Celsius during the day. I gather if people plant beans in November why not try the MGs...It seems that one has to make a decision with MGs, it's either flowers or seeds, so if I leave the seed pods on, this will impede the flowering process. I had such a show with my four o'clocks when I removed the wilted flowers in the morning. The minute I got somewhat slackish on pinching off these flowers they started producing seeds...and the show was over. I got a nice square heavenly blue that really made my day today.


Martin

I have had one single bloom from this plant, which was self-pollinated, no other nils around it...It turns out that the 3 seeds I got are all black, considering that blue silk is normally beige or brown I find this unusual...

Look at this Martin!

These two seeds came from the same pod (the only two in the pod). They are both viable seeds and not rotten at all.

Hi Beth, do you still have some MGs flowering inside? Any more seeds from the big purple one? Are the tentens doing ok inside?

I'm still getting some indoor blooms, but they tend to be small. The tentens are done blooming and just maturing the seedpods. I sent you some more big purple seeds, so I sure hope they make it though customs.

Martin & Beth, thank you for bringing up the color of Blue Silk seeds. Our Blue Silk seeds turned out to be both beige and brown, too, and I was wondering about that.

So, as far as anyone knows, does the color of Blue Silk seed relate to any variances in the flowers or plant as a whole? or not?

Karen

I need to grow a black and brown seed side by side and see if there is any difference. Especially knowing they came from the same pod would be good information to have when comparing.

Me too. Plus, one pod yielded 5 beige seeds with brown splotches - like a Calico cat. We need to do a grow-out of those, too. Would you and Martin like some of the calicos? If so, Beth, what sort of procedure (if any) did you follow at the post office to send Martin MG seeds earlier? No two post office employees tell me the same thing when I try to mail seeds internationally.

I sent seeds to Martin in Germany. German customs opened the envelope but didn't confiscate anything. I attached one of those green customs forms to the envelope before mailing it.
Beth

Thank you, Beth. Sounds easier than Canada.

Martin said it's easier to send them to Germany than Morocco.

Am cross-posting another Blue Silk thread with this one - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/769378/

Note Ron's conclusion that Blue Silk seeds "are usually beige but not always" - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3957026

Also note his post where he devilishly "thickens the soup" - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/669859/ . This one re-emphasizes our need for a growout of black & tan seeds with photos documenting seed color linked to type of flower/plant. Can't wait to see what those "calicos" do.

Well, you can see how many eggs I hatched roosting on the previous cross-posted posts - thanks, Beth

I'd love to participate in a grow out...maybe in spring?

Beth, that would be great. I've got a couple weeks to dry out my MG seeds before sending them out by Christmas, and spring growouts would be easiest for me, too.

By the way, I just checked my notes for Blue Silk, and I have a sheepish remark to cross-post here. After going to great lengths to unravel these vines, I let my well-meaning, lovable DH help me to cut stems with pods to ripen indoors in water just once, and he accidentally mixed the Blue Silk vines with another of Gardener2005's Kikyo vines that was a single, powder blue with picotee. Some seeds look more like Karen-05's other Kikyo vine seeds in being smaller and black, plus the stalk between flower and stem (pedicel???) was much shorter on the Kikyos and other platycodon-type flowers I grew than on other Ipomoea nil flowers. Sooooo, I hope no one minds a little extra spice in our "thickened soup".

Hi folks, I have to revoke what I said earlier, the seed colour of my mini is beige, I confused the seeds with some other MGs. I have only 1 seed, the shape of the seed is, however, unusual compared to the other blue silks, its rather big considering the small bloom, and almost round. Let's hope this one will grow fine next year and produce more seeds.

Martin, do you have a scanner to scan the seeds?

Thanks, Beth for the purple seeds. My purpureas are still flowering outside, and it is almost December. I didn't have the heart to strip them from the poles as there are still seeds pods ripening...evne though I won't be growing these again in a life time.


Martin

They are going to self-seed and be growing there forever...probably!

Here's a blue silk seed I scanned a while back.