Moonflowers open during Daytime??

18 years ago

I have some moonflower vines growing in a semi large container indoors (sunny southern window! ) and it has just begun to flower, on Earth Day , as a matter of fact (which I thought was auspicious :) Well today I noted two more flowers that were going to open - and just looked at them (4:45 pm, and it's still very light here until 8 : 30 pm!) and they are both opened / opening already! What gives? Does this happen with this flower frequently? I have only grown them outdoors for two years now so I don't have a ton of experience with this plant but I do know none of those opened before dark..WELL into the dark in fact, like 10 or even 11 pm here . Anyone have daytime openings like this?? Maybe growing them indoors confuses things (?) ....I do know that I am in heaven to be able to smell their exquisite scent in April :) (planted the seeds on February 8th) .....I feel lucky...and also, they are FULL sized flowers, fully 6 inches across with that gorgeous long tubular beginning.

thanks in advance,

Chris

Comments (4)

LindaMA
18 years ago
I have moonflower seedlings, big seedlings in my kitchen but do not have anything remotely close to buds/flowers yet but I am so looking forward to seeing them bloom. How tall are yours? I have one that is about 6-7 inches now. I plan on planting it with my Grandpa Otts morning glories. I'm also glad to hear that they smell that good!
whitejade
Original Author
18 years ago
Hi Linda,

Mine are really tall...they have climbed all the way up the 7 foot tall bamboo poles I placed when I planted the seeds (it was an 8 foot pole but 12 inches are buried in the pot) and are in the process of flailing around in the air , twining together and simply ignoring the horizontal pole we've placed for them so they can run along the window. They don't seem to understand "horizontal" as they run into this pole regularly during their daytime movements but don't want to latch onto it ....they are happy to just hang in the air though I've noticed!

I can set my watch to them - they start opening around 4:40 pm here....so perhaps it is the indoors environment that is throwing off their timing....
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sinner_gurl
18 years ago
Mine open in the evening as well as on very cloudy/overcast days. I had them in a pot and they went wild -bent themselves over and rooted into the ground next to the pot.
They have a nice fragrance and like to climb on the nearby shrubs and roses.
nopets
9 years ago
Another moonflower bud opening up this one during the day, it is a cloudy,cool day so it decided to open up before dark. I just am glad they decided to grow and bloom for me.