Morning Glories 2008 #27

Merry Christmas to ALL and to all a quick Spring!

Sheesh! We skipped Spring and it seems like it is jumping right into summer here. Temps in the 80's and believe me ... it is not balmy ... instead hot and humid! I want just one month of winter!!!! I am so tired of sweating and running our air conditioning! (rolling eyes ...)

I think just for grins ... I am going to plant some MG seeds in the ground near the patio area along the picket fence. Heck! If it's going to stay this warm, might as well. The Blue Star and Moonflowers have been the only ones blooming lately along with the Rose/Chocolate Silk along the back fence. Oh yeah ... and the Purple Flaked I. purpurea in the pot seems to have gotten it's second wind and has been producing quite a few blooms each day. Apparently some seeds fell down into the pot from this vine, so I have a bunch of new sprouts coming up, too! Looks like we are skipping winter this year. Of course, we often don't get the cold temps until late January through March! LOL! But we may not get much in the way of cold. I seriously doubt it. I think the global warming has changed our climate here permanently. If only electricity (to run my a/c) was cheaper ... lol!

This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 12:29 PM

I finally got ONE lavender moonflower seed to sprout indoor...now I gotta find a new camera to take a picture of it~ off to the stores!!!! My bills are chilling me!!!! lol good luck / new seeds outside!!! I had some overwinter one year here. Once. Only once. :)
:D

Go for it Becky. Since you're having the hot, summer time temps, might as well have
some blooms to show for it. :-)

Jackie - Exactly!!!

Hey, Darren - Be sure to post some photos from the new camera! Hopefully, you found a good deal on a new one! Today's a good shopping day for the sales! :-)

Jackie, your "Wild and Crazy Flying Saucers '06" certainly do give one pause. Back in the 70s, I covered a gate-arbor and 50' of chain link along a property line with 'Heavenly Blue' and never saw any variation whatsoever. It seems, just in recent years, that folks have been getting surprises from their seed packets of Ipomoea tricolor 'Heavenly Blue' and I. tri. 'Flying Saucers'. Wonder if anything has really changed, and if so, what the seedsmen have been up to?

Outstanding blues, GardenPom. This one could have almost been angel's trumpets on Christmas day - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=5926736

Very cute, Dany.

Evr, the light-dark changes on the Xiong's Chinese is interesting. Are you growing these indoors now, or are these pics from last summer? If last summer, was it cloudy and/or cool that day? I gauge our summer heat around here by the number of buckets I sweat - the lighter one, here, would have been a zero-bucket day, for me - lol

Darren - "and to all a quick Spring" - YES!! (ps - would you consider aquiring a tripod along with your camera? I hear you about budget issues, but the tripod sure helps take clearer pictures. Mine came with a thingy into which I could screw the camera, which really stabilized the camera for clearer pics. Ron put the bug in my ear about tripods, and he was sooooooo right.)

Becky - I hope you sow some seed in the ground, too. Am dmailing you shortly.

To everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and make the most of the coming New Year.

Karen - I grew them indoors this year Fall. The blooms were about a week or two apart, but I did notice that it was getting cooler (outside) and there was also a significant decrease in the amount of sun that was penetrating through my windows. I should take a note of that for my vines that are blooming now -_-. Thanks for the heads up Karen =)

Eliz, morning glories seem like such sensitive flowers. This reminds me of an incident north of us - After the Pennsylvania nuclear power plant, Three Mile Island, was found to be leaking, it was noticed that a spiderplant (species of Tradescantia - don't know which one - looks like the charmingly named 'Snotweed' - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/b/Commelinaceae/Tradescantia/none/cultivar/0/ ), changed color relative to how much radiation was leaking. It became the "canary of the coal mine" for the area surrounding that nuclear power plant.

Soooo - the question occurs - if morning glories can manifest such interesting physical changes with respect to light and temperature changes, I wonder how other parts of the electromagnitic spectrum affect them?

gardenpom - Awesome photos! Never disappointed in your terrific photography!

Karen - I often see changes in my garden MG vines as the seasons change. The cooler temps tend to make my I. purpurea blooms much smaller. As it does with my I. nil blooms. Or does that happen because of the light spectrum for different times of the year? Always fascinating stuff!

I see those smaller blooms at the end of summer, too, in the purpureas and nils. I don't know if it's old age for an annual or fewer daylight hours each day (declining photoperiod) or cool temps or something else or some synergistic effect of any or all of the foregoing.

Soulja, how do the morning glories that you start indoors around the winter solstice behave toward the end of their lives? When you bring them outside in the spring, how do they behave with respect to this question? And then there are all those folks on Joseph's thread on starting MGs in the winter who might have some comments to make about this, too.

I just looked at my favorites and see I've indexed a few relevant posts from Ron on MG metabolism and sections of the EM spectrum. It's getting late, so will try to work on that for the sticky tomorrow. I wish Firefox allowed me to index information as precisely as Internet Explorer does. FireFox's bookmarking/tagging system is too nebulous for the sheer volume and detail IE lets me handle.

Thanks again, everyone, for the much appreciated blooms this time of year.

Karen

Hi Karen. For what my scattered observations are worth: Like children they all behave differently. I just brought in a few pots at the end of the season and put them under light and kept watering and the volunteers of Fuji dark blue are already back in bloom. Depending on hardening techniques they survive and then thrive here outdoors mostly when it's too hot for anything else. I was too quick last year to put them out and lost a few very unique vines. I tend to push spring too fast....

Last year I woke up to blooms inside my cabin here all winter long. I had an HPS 1,000 watt which seemed like too much for my space so I downgraded to a dual arc 600 red spectrum and 400 blue which seems to keep the plants greener so far. They also get natural light in addition and I always had the feeling about some of the larger more delicate types, the silks, that they seem to have a very good time indoors where the elements don't disturb their form. I'm supplementing them with SEA-90 mineral solids now along with high quality fish emulsion and using different mediums as well. So many variables but I would say hardening is very critical.

in the meantime, waiting for more blooms.

Karen: I agree to this~:
I see those smaller blooms at the end of summer, too, in the purpureas and nils. I don't know if it's old age for an annual or fewer daylight hours each day (declining photoperiod) or cool temps or something else or some synergistic effect of any or all of the foregoing.
mine chugged out til there were none like watching them go off into the sunset, smaller and smaller until outta site. As for a Tripod, well Heck yeah i want one and NEED one!! we will see...I have an old one from a telescope I MAY try to jury-rig first :) LOL
Have a great one~~~~~!!!
pics soon, lol...

The moral of this story: take photos early on in the season. I have also seen the smaller flowers as the season goes on. The only way around that is to plant vines in waves, if you live in a continuous growing season.

Joseph

THIS IS A TEST it is only a test...LOL please forgive me :)

Joseph - I have to agree with you and I'm gonna try that suggestion this weekend. I used to have so few seeds I didn't want to take the chance of planting any too early and then have an unexpected freeze hit them and kill the little darlings. Now after 2 years of growing MGs, I have enough seeds to "waste" in case it does suddenly go down into freezing temps. Though I actually think that the rust fungus will get them long before a freeze does. LOL! Not funny really, but oh so true ...

Darren - LOL about them "disappearing into the sunset"! How fitting indeed! You gave me a nice mental image! Thanks!

Well... I went to spend a gift certificate at a local garden center. I was gonna buy a bottle of fish emulsion. Well got more sticker shock ... 4 months ago I paid $10.95 for a bottle and today that bottle was $22.95. Needless to say, I didn't buy the bottle. I have a little bit left, so decided I'd make do at this time. Highway robbery if you ask me! Even if I wasn't counting my pennies, I'd still walk away ... Grrrr ...

This message was edited Dec 27, 2008 6:09 PM

How many seeds do you have growing in those cups, Darren??? I see several! What are they?

There are two in each, Becky, Lavender Moonflowers, and they are a test too...thanks i am glad you liked the anology... :)
:Darren

Lots' of blooms this morning, but had to leave early and could not get many decent shots.

Triple blues.

Babies in waiting:

lobatas tonight:

Your set-up is CRAZY! Love it! I am just amazed at what ya got growing there! And the Lobata ... ahhhh ... one of my obsessions!!

I managed to get about 25 seeds from that little Lobata vine that I grew during Fall. I am so proud of myself that I figured out how to pollinate that vine! I have plans to plant more along the back fence in hopes that they do well and get much, much bigger! I had a large Lobata vine a couple years ago and it was amazing! The vine and blooms were quite stunning! I can't wait to see yours blooming! Are you going to transplant it outside in Spring?

Oh you betcha, if I can keep it going inside until april 15th it will be a show stopper out front....

Just a few pics taken this morning.

Morning Glory inside a Morning Glory.

Inside glory pic 2.

WOW! what kinda magic is that!

Gardenpom - This one is beautiful!!! http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=5942011 Do you do seed trades for that one? If so, I am interested!

Love the photo of the smaller I. purpurea blooms placed inside the larger blue blooms! Great photos and contrast of flowers! :-)

That was one of the Flying Saucer types I got at Lowes'. I may have seed left, I'll check. If I do you are welcome to some.

Thanks! I would love 3-4 seeds. :-) Dmail me to let me know how you'd like to handle this. I have seeds I could trade you if you are interested. :-)

This message was edited Dec 30, 2008 7:14 PM

Those could LOOK AWESOME in preserved paperweights, i forget what it is called but there is a like liquid acrylic fluid you can buy at craft stores...and preserve flowers and all the like.
:D