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Most of my favorite flowering vines are in the plant family Ipomoea. The most common member of this family is the morning glory, though there are about 300 more plants, including the sweet potato, and many of them are twining climbers.
It will be a jungle out there when my vines grow up! The morning glory can grow to be ten feet tall or more in a season, which made it a popular privy plant in the old days when it was often used to camouflage the outhouse.
As its name suggests, the flowers open in the morning and gradually fade during the afternoon. They will wrap their vines around anything—wood, wire, string, and even each other.
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Fittingly, in the language of flowers, they represent bonds and attachments.
I love the heart-shaped leaves and sky blue flowers of ‘Clarke’s Heavenly Blue’ but the flowers do come in other colors.
Rich, wine-red ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ has a pure white throat.
‘Kniola’s Black Knight’ is a deep purple with a hot pink throat and ‘Flying Saucers’ are silvery white streaked with blue. There are double-flowering forms like ‘Sunrise Serenade’ which makes up for the fact that it needs help climbing (you have to tie it to its support) by having large, ruffled, red blossoms that stay open longer than single flowering varieties do.
My favorite is ‘Grandpa Ott’s’. It is a vigorous climber that has dark blue flowers with a red star in the throat. It is the heirloom plant that gave Seed Savers Exchange its start.
A few other Ipomoeas you may want to try include:
- Moonflower looks like a large white morning glory but its flowers open at night making it the perfect plant for a moon garden.
- Cardinal Climber has interesting, deeply cut foliage and its flowers are bright red, tubular-shaped trumpets. Hummingbirds can’t resist it!
- Cypress Vine is very similar to cardinal climber bearing the same red tubular flowers but its leaves are more finely cut and fern-like.
- Spanish Flag bears racemes of small tubular flowers that start out bright red, turn orange when mature and then fade to yellow and finally turn white. There can be hundreds of these blossoms, all at different stages of growth and colors, at the same time on a single plant. They really do look like tiny flags.
All Ipomoeas prefer a sunny location with well-drained soil and tolerate drought. No need to fertilize them, in fact overly fertile soil will promote lush leaf growth instead of flowers. Soak the seeds overnight before planting to soften the seed coat and speed germination.
Flowering vines are fast growers and will cover an unsightly spot in your yard in no time.They are charming when grown on a trellis or twined around the railings of your sunny porch or deck. They can be trained to form a living fence or privacy screen, provide shade, or just add a wall of color. As an architectural element, they lend a new dimension to any garden. Time to think about growing up!
Read more about growing this vine on our Morning Glory Plant page.
Robin Sweetser
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I was gifted a morning glory plant. It grew slowly o
Until late summer,then I had large leaves few flowers. This year it did not come up again. I planted in a south east corner by the house
Was surprised to see the interest in morning glory and the different colors, always thought it was only white flowered and considered a pest. I found my while hiking in Ukraine, came across an large abandoned building surrounded by a tall wire fence that was a huge wall of these beautiful different colored flowers, was so impressed I took some seed pods and grow them every year in western Canada. They make such a wonderful cover for a fence and the flowers change color during the day. Wasn't until later discovered they were morning glory.
I have the bluish-purplish morning glories, planted seeds more than 10 years ago and of course they just reseed and come back. There are so many seedlings every spring that I need to thin them out. I originally planted a variety pack of red, white and blue, which resulted in all purple. OK, that happens. I've had other seeds produce a color that was not intended. In subsequent years, I've added packs of red and other colors to mix in with the purple. Nope. As stunning as the purple is, it would be more spectacular to have red along with them. I'm going to try some red this year, too, but after 5 or more attempts, I don't have high hopes. Any ideas why I never get another color? I never heard of soil conditions affecting morning glory colors.
Hey! I have the exact morning glory flowers that are pictured in the last photo at the end of the article.
I've been trying to ID the name, and am not finding it elsewhere .
Can anyone help with what this variety is called ?
It resembles the tricolor size and foliage , almost like heavenly blue with a purple tint to it (not dark like grandpa ott)
Hi I just moved to Gardnerville Nevada I would like to plant morning glories on my fence that gets full sun till about 4:00 in the afternoon would that be enough sun for them?
That's plenty of sun. I don't know the intensity of the sun in the part of Nevada you mention. If any problem at all, it could be too much light and heat. The heat might be more of an issue than the light. Try some in a few areas and see what happens. But keep in mind that once you get blooms, they are going to reseed and you'll likely have them there pretty much forever.
You can put morning glories in vinegar and the color will leach out to make a stained glass sort of liquid, which can and should be kept in the sun. I have had some for years. This can be diluted with water and I am not sure how long that lasts. You can also use citrus juice, but there are all,sorts of questions about edibility. Morning glories are glorious in a bowl for the day. They can be dried at the end of the day on a pillowcase. Dried morning glories produce the same affect as fresh,
Last year I had dozens of morning glories of all different colors; so far this year, not one single bloom or even a bud! The vine has a lot of bright green healthy leaves but no flowers. I am so disappointed, however I read something that said they could be "late blooming" varieties, and not bloom until as late as September. I am still hoping....
I have the same this year, lots and lots of lovely leaves, never thought it would flower, and today just been out, and there are buds, loads of them, so it it flowering very late, today is September 16th, hope the frost will not get to them, looking forward to the flowers opening, maybe tomorrw.
