What MG's are you growing in 2008?

I have the worst time EVER with moonflowers. I scrap i soak, i scrape again. i feel and fear i will dig thru the seed to the otherside in order to get these seeds to sprout. Ideas~ any other ~from anyone? Should be a new thread i know, but I started typing and couldn't stop. Oh lazy me!!!
help and thanks~~~

I just plant my Moon Flower seeds and in a week or two I see them sprouting with their large leaves! I don't nick or soak them either. Try just planting them and keeping the soil moist until they sprout. Mine are not in direct sun either. Though as they start getting longer, the vine will be in sunlight for part of the day. Maybe you are trying too hard to nuture them. Plant em and forget em! That's my motto.

Also how old are your seeds?

Would anyone like to send me a SASBE with return postage and what variety or characteristics of MG you would like to have? I some extra seeds that sure would appreciate homes.

I'll give priority to folks already posting on this forum, but anyone is welcome to ask. These extra seeds are all open pollinated, so I cannot guarantee how true they will be.

The following have already received their seeds:
Beckygardener
PamSue

Seeds were sent 3/3/08 to the following:
Gourd
OhioBreezy

Envies are ready to go and waiting their turn (to anyone else waiting on me - I do have your envies ready to go, also - am spacing out postage):
ByndeweedBeth
Luvsgrtdanes
Seedsower
Skimper

All of these seeds' parents also came from the very generous people on this forum. DH and I had such a ball last summer among all the festoons & garlands of such gorgeous and fascinating MGs, that it would be an honor to share with as many people as show similar appreciation for this flower.

ps - this is my 3rd try to post this - wish me luck

Ipomoea nil 'Rose Silk' "Almost Solid"

This message was edited Mar 4, 2008 1:46 PM

I. nil 'Shibori

I grew 3 vines of this one, and the seeds are now gone from the one that I can say definitely looked like this. So, you'd be taking your chances with this one. Also in the pic are Shibori's neighbors - it would be fun to see if any seedlings look anything like the neighbors. I'm curious about what next summer's seedlings may have to say to us about genetic drift with respect to proximity of neighbors and also possibly wrt dominant/recessive relationships among genes. So purty please - y'all post whatch get :)

The pale pink one came as 'Sazanami' and looks an awful lot like 'Toukan'. It's sister vine was a creamy, mid-dark, slightly purplish royal blue with very slight speckling at the end of the season. Joseph, a few years ago, didn't you get the same combination of colors when you sowed 'Sazanami'? I only got 6 seeds from this Toukan-look-a-like, so don't have any of that one to share.

The deep purple beyond is Royal Majesty - don't have a lot of those, but if you reallyreally want that one, ask.

I. nil 'Plum Gray Smoke' 32-1
This one was the only gray I grew with that delicate diffused aspect

(ps - I edited my first post for those waiting on me to send their envie - they're ready, but have been spacing postage out)

Oh those are georgeous !!

Could I please be included for SASE ?
My favorits would be Jap.and the colors would be blues,pinks and purples.But whatever you can share would be appreciated.
Sorry this is so short but I have a Dr.appoinment and I better get moving.
Thank you in advance.

I. nil 'Velvet Plum' 34-1,2

from EmmaGrace, as were the foregoing Rose Silk & Shibori

These two vines produced tons of seeds, but most are of poor quality. So, the poorer the quality of seed, the more of them there will be.

Hi Eglantyne, I've cut & pasted your post into a word document, so the seeds are yours. It's easier on me if folks dmail me, though. I don't have a whole lot of pinks left, but a "color landscape" I made of my seeds will help me to send something within a group with similar color/characteristics to approximate a request.

Ipomoea purpurea 'Indigo Feathers'

By now, the bagged ones are mostly gone, and since only 2 out of the 6 seeds I originally received were true, the parents of my seed might have had some some open pollination going on there, too. We can thank PamSue for this one - she knew I reallyreally wanted it, and it surpassed my hopes.

Two more that gave a lot of seed were I. youjiro seedlings and were dark, velvety purple - the first one with a white picotee and the second one with more complex pattern of a dark star with a field of lighter violet within and without it. The second one also had picotee and partial rays.

These 2 youjiros had 2 or 3 flowers per pedicel, whereas I. nils often only have 1, and perhaps they made up for being more prolific and numerous than nils by being smaller.

Normally, Ipomoea nil cultivars do not ripen very much seed before fall frost here, and I don't have a greenhouse. Ron's directions to ripen immature pods on their stems in water (I added a tad of hydrogen perioxide to the water & grew them under lights) allowed me to have such an abundant harvest. Sometimes, I got 30' of one vine in one jar by twisting the it around an 18" long, thin but sturdy bamboo stick and tying here and there with twist ties. Multiply 20' or so per jar times approximately 120 jars, and you can imagine how efficient that technique was for a 6' x 8' space against one indoor wall.

This whole business has taken gobs of time, so I hope folks will continue to be patient with me.

Everyone let me know if they'd like any seeds - if you can't afford a SASBE, let me know.

Thanks Blue, I'll let you know when they arrive.

fernman23,

On the moonvine seeds, you can use a dogs nail clipper to nick the seeds and soak... now these seeds you have to be careful soaking cuz they burst like anything. They crack and look weird.. a person on GW that I traded with years ago drilled a little hole in all the seeds he sent me with his dremel tool.

I've not yet gotten one to bloom for me ever. Haven't tried them since.

Bluespiral, that's a very generous offer. You're a winner, as are all the folks on this forum who generously give their seeds to others. I wouldn't have any seeds this year if it weren't for some on this forum.

bluespiral,
OMG you collected all those seeds ? I am astonished over the amount you harvested and smiling to myself in anticipation of what I might be able to collect this fall and then share with others here on DG.

There is actually more to growing them as I thought.Thanks for the ex.info above,I bet it is time consuming.
I will d-mail you then,ok

Karen - Thanks! You were extremely generous with all the seeds you sent me! I encourage anyone lurking or posting to d-mail Karen (bluespiral) for seeds for SASBE.

Okay ... I am a little confused. Are we talking about this Moonflower vine?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/893/

If so, I am wondering why there seems to be some fuss about germinating and getting this vine to bloom? I just planted 8 - 10 seeds a couple of weeks ago along two fence sections that I have trellises on. Seems they all germinated as I am seeing the first leaves have popped up out of the ground. I am also growing Coral Bean vine seeds along with them. Which have also germinated and are already vining up the trellises. (The Coral Bean vine is for the hummers and the Moonflower is for the Hummingbird Moths.) They are growing in a sandy soil area of my garden beds. I grew them last year in the same location. Mine bloomed up a storm. I did use some of the Bloom Booster fertilizer on them. Maybe that is why I got so many flowers. But I really didn't do much to them. Kinda neglected them if you want to know the truth. For me they were very, very easy to germinate, grow, and bloom. I kinda assumed they grow wherever planted.

This message was edited Mar 4, 2008 8:04 PM

I have never had a problem with moonflower seeds. I use the simply plant in a pot and water method for those and they usually are sprouting in about 7 days. The commercial moonflower seeds(I think Burpee?) from Wal Mart I have tried had about a 8 of 10 or 80% germination rate. I like getting those from Wal Mart because if I get too many dud seeds I can get a hassle free refund or replacement. Karen

Thanks Karen! you are a generous person, I can't wait :)

Oh my, now where to plant all these beauties LOLOLOL there is always more room at the inn for MG's!!!

Seamus, the last time I tried to grow Ipomoea tricolor Heavenly Blue, I. tricolor 'Flying Saucers' was what came out of the seed packet - maybe you should try a packet of Heavenly Blue in order to grow Flying Saucers? (teasing - that was years ago)

Someone just asked me what kind of MG to avoid. Well, I gave the latin binomial to which Heavenly Blue and Flying Saucers belong, because some characteristics vary from MG species to MG species (there are approximately 50 genera & 1,000 species).

Members of I. tricolor have given me sheets of blossoms in the past when we had full sun, and not until dieback that came with frost in the autumn did I see a significant number of dead leaves.

Now that so much more of our property is shaded, morning glories belonging to I. purpurea do better for us. They get more diseased leaves than those within I. tricolor, but not as many as those belonging to I. nil (to which the other four I listed above belong). Also, whereas I have never seen any I. tricolor self-sow, I. purpurea self-sows freely here and can be wintersown, unlike I. tricolor and I. nil (to my knowledge).

The I. nil cultivars do okay in partial shade, although not as well in shade as the purpureas. But, when it comes to disease - you have got to be overcome by the romance of those often huge clouds of silk - because, in our garden, the nils are most susceptible to rust. Rust begins to appear about the time flowering begins and by mid-August is quite disfiguring. I picked the leaves off one-by-one and others spray. Even after the first wave of leaves were gone to disease, though, auxillary shoots in leaf axils appeared and made many more secondary vines which kept producing new leaves and flowers.

So, should my answer be to avoid cultivars belonging to I. nil? For myself, the beauty of the flowers will keep me growing them. Most perennial flowers only bloom for about 2 weeks anyway, and if annual flowers didn't go to seed, it would get tricky to perpetuate those plants. I grow shrub roses without spraying, so their debacle precedes the August MG debacle by a couple of months earlier in late June. In my garden, I am always having debacles. With morning glories growing everywhere last summer, I guess you could say we were living on Debacle Hill - lol.

My solution has been to distract away from debacles such as growing plants in combinations that include a more respectably leaved plant (RLP) or are near an RLP. Or, to keep in mind that as the season turns, an RLP will come along soon enough. Or - the ultimate coping mechanism for debacles - take a walk.

An example of what I did about MG (and other) debacles was to grow I. purpurea 'Rebecca' on a bamboo pole across a path (our paths had so many pairs of uprights and crossbars with MGs on them that it was almost like walking through endless arbors). Near that pole in the flower bed, rose 'Graham Thomas' is espaliered at the back of the bed and opposite the bed is a 50' hedge of yew with Autumn clematis growing up through it. In late August - early September, all 3 bloomed together and when they passed, the architecture of the green hedge, geometry of the beds and paths and a blue gate at the end of this particular path in the hedge maintained the "presence" or "feel" of a garden.

Or - grow another species from the approximately 997 species within the morning glory family. I haven't seen problems with rust in the moonflowers (I. alba) I've been growing here. There are other moonflowers, besides the one mentioned here so far (I. alba). The ones I know about are I. turbinata (very quick to flower from seed, has small mauve/pink flowers); I. albivenia (might need more exacting horticultural techniques); I. saintronanensis - I'll bet there are others.

Explore some of the other morning glories here - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=Convolvulaceae&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=no&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=genus&images_prefs=both&Search=Search . I'll bet there are quite a few without issues with rust that plague the nils and purpureas in my garden.

Fernman, once you succeed at germinating moonflowers, you'll probably be plunking them in pots just like Becky, Karen-05 and myself from then on. Why not try again and plant one group just like Karen-05 says. But, at the same time, try EmmaGrace's technique with another group of seeds - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3303432 , I like it because of the way it walks you through the steps and tips you off on what to look for during the germination process. It walks you through nicking, so that you begin to understand how and why to nick. It may not be necessary to go through everything in her directions, but you'll come away with a better understanding of MG seeds and the germination process. And understanding is the key to cracking many a puzzle.

Karen

ps - thank you everyone and you're welcome

This message was edited Mar 4, 2008 8:19 PM

bluespiral,

Karen, just wanted to let you know that my package arrived..

Thank you!!!

I'' D-mail you.

A.