Tracey,

There's several reasons that moonflower vine (Ipomoea alba) and cardinal climber vine (Ipomoea sloteri) might not be blooming. Here's a few things to think about:

It could be the heat.

It could be they are getting so much moisture they're continuing to focus on vegetative growth. I'd try withholding water.

It could be they have received too much nitrogen, or the soil was nitrogen-rich to begin with. I wouldn't feed them again unless they begin showing an obvious sign of nutritional deficiency. I never feed mine at all ever and they flower just fine.

I don't think it is the western exposure. I have grown them with a western exposure and in full sun with a southern exposure and they always bloomed there. The heat doesn't really bother them, other than the fact that on very hot days their lush leaves might wilt a little. They recover later after the sun goes down though.

It could be something is messing up their day length sensitivity. Moonflowers often stop blooming (if they're already started) when they are getting more than 12 hours a day of daylight. I have found this trait to be highly variable though--and more obvious in some years than in others. I don't know why it isn't more consistent. I had to change the area where I grow them several years ago after we put up a big backyard security light. The light it produced messed them up because they were getting too much light at night. I moved them to the east and north side of the garden about 150' away from that light, and they do just fine there.

Cardinal climbers are always pretty late from me, and I believe they have some daylength sensitivity. Having said that, I think that normally they are blooming my mid- to late-July.

How many hours of daylight you're having at your house right now, plus the possible presence of nighttime lighting, may explain why yours aren't blooming. Down here where I live, we still are having roughly 14 hours a day of sunlight, from about 6:30 in the morning until around 8:30 in the evening. That's longer than moonflowers like, for sure, and I am not sure about the cardinal climbers. I do know that in my garden they bloom later in the summer than the morning glories do.

Also, try to think like the plants. Why do they bloom? Is it to look good? To please humans? No. They bloom in order to form seed and perpetuate their own species. As long as they are well-fed and well-watered, they have no reason to think their demise is imminent so they do not get in a big hurry to flower and set seed. Withhold water and fertilizer and see if that spurs them to start flowering.

Dawn

My cardinal climber vines aren't blooming either, they are in the same place I had them last year when they bloomed just fine. It's a mix of cardinal climbers and cypress vines, actually, snd they look healthy, just not blooming. My hyacinth bean vines are the same way, except their foliage is pretty scraggly as well.

I just figured it was the heat, although last year was not exactly balmy, either.

I had forgotten, I also have BE Susan vine. It isn't blooming either. This is my first year with these...hopefully I will learn what they like soon. Its going to be hard to keep water away...all vines are at the back of the flower beds. The only moonflower I could get to come up is under the concrete birdbath, it gets new water at least 1x a day. I'm going to do my best to let them dry out some.

Thanks for the input!

For whatever it's worth, my cardinal vine hasn't bloomed yet, either. No idea what's up with it. I'm blaming it (like everything else!) on the heat.

It undoubtedly is the heat, but it does help if you aren't overwatering or overfeeding them and keeping them in a vegetative state.

Look at it this way, y'all, when the weather cools down, your vines will burst into spectacular bloom and you'll enjoy it even more than usual because y'all had to wait so long to see the bloom.

Dawn

Wouldnt that be great!? I have about 100ft of fences covered with various vines. The Morning Glories have been flowering beautifully, except the ones that have grown into heavy shade.

My morning glories have been flowering beautifully too, and I have them strategically growing on trellises where I grow cantaloupes, Armenian cucumbers, cucumbers (which late last week gave up and died after two days over 109 degrees), icebox watermelons and Seminole pumpkin. I am growing Granpa Ott's and the pollinators that come to the gorgeous purple flowers also pollinate my veggies, so it works out really well. And, because morning glories go where they wish, they've also grown down into the other summer and winter squash plants and are working their way through them. The purple morning glory blooms are a beautiful contrast with the big yellow blooms of the squash.

I'm in northwest Arkansas, so I'm relatively close. I moved here from Oregon last year, so this is my first gardening year here. I planted moonflower vines and cardinal climbers in my front and backyard. The cardinal climbers I planted facing east get sun all day until around 1PM. They grew like mad, then started blooming like crazy in JUNE. I couldn't believe it. I chalked it up to the stellar southern sun. My moonflowers bloomed shortly thereafter. The CC's in back had about 7 or 8 blooms a couple weeks ago, but I have seen any before or since. I get blooms all over my moonflowers on both, but they look like they are just about to pop open and then wilt. I'm wondering if it's the heat. Any ideas?

Yes, mine is finally blooming. Of course, transplanting didn't help it...

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Our moon flower is not blooming but cardinal and morning glory are blooming since July. Some mornign glories are tricky, large flowered variety usually starts blooming mid Sept but small flowered blooms much early.

Moonflower VINE tends to bloom later, and my Cardinal Climbers are so variable, blooming some years early and some years late. Temperamental things. I grow my night blooming flowers for the night flying sphinx moths. For reliability, I grow Datura (moonflower, not a vine), which always begins blooming in June, and WHITE 4 o'clocks, which have done incredibly well for me my first year growing them. I sowed the 4 o'clock seeds in styrofoam cups in late March and transplanted in early May. They grew quickly and are pretty large plants now, literally covered in blooms. The Datura species I grow is D. wrightii. It is a shrubby, sprawling perennial here in OKC. Easy to grow from seeds.

There is another night blooming vine in the Ipomoea genus commonly called Lavender Moonvine, Ipomoea muricata. I grew some this year, but I started them too late. I am going to try them again because they are supposed to bloom earlier and more freely than the Ipomoea alba or Moonvine. The flowers are smaller, but the moths are supposed to love it.

The large caterpillar you found on it was probably a Pink-Spotted Hawkmoth or Agrius cingulata. They use Ipomoea as a larval host plant and are beautiful night flying hummingbird moths with a very long proboscis that it uses to nectar on and pollinate deep-throated flowers like the Moonvine, Datura, etc. It will not harm the plant and the foliage it eats will grow back. Attaching info on it.

The Moonvine and Cardinal Vine may just be blooming late due to environmental issues such as light, moisture, heat, etc. Mine always bloomed later than the day blooming morning glories.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Pink Spotted Hawkmoth

If I sow seeds of moonflower vine in April or May, it usually is blooming in late July or early August. I didn't plant any moonflower vine this year.

Susan, I had seed of lavender moonvine for this year, but didn't sow it because I didn't want to waste my precious 5 or 10 seeds on a dry summer. May was so dry here and I was so disgusted with the dryness that I didn't want to plant flowers that would struggle without heavy irrigation. I hope next year is a better flower year because I want to grow those lavender moonvines. I didn't even plant morning glories, but then I always have cardinal climber and morning glory volunteers that have reseeded themselves around the garden even when I don't sow any seed. This year, the morning glory volunteers were Grandpa Ott's and Milky Way.

The daturas are weeds here and pop up all over the place. I love the flowers, but not when they pop up in a row of tomato plants or whatever. I left more in the veggie garden this year than usual and let them bloom because early in the season pollinators seemed scarce and I wanted to attract more.

Four o'clocks are one of my favorite flowers to grow here. We have them in fuschia, pink, yellow and white most years. It just depends on what reseeded, which ones crowded out the others, etc. Their scent is so lovely and it perfumes the entire yard and garden in the evenings. Most of my long-established ones are 10 years old or older, so even when they die back to the ground during extreme drought, they rebound nicely once rain falls. They likely have tubers the size of a human head by now. After I stopped watering in July, Tim kept urging me to water the four o'clocks because they looked bad and he was worried they'd die. I laughed that off and told him "they won't die and you can't kill them". They yellowed, wilted, and dropped some leaves...but none died, and as soon as a little rain fell they perked right up again.

I do think heat and lack of moisture have really messed with a lot of the flowers this year. After not having any native sunflowers at all most of the summer, 3 or 4 plants sprouted in the area where we "always" have them in July after some rain fell, and now we have lots of sunflowers in bloom. Three or four plants isn't much---we usually have dozens, but it is better than nothing. My Texas red star hibiscus survived all summer but did not bloom well. Now that it has rained, it is back and bloom. I think the drought got the cleomes in early August, but am hoping they reseeded so I'l have them back next year.

The hummingbirds are in the garden every morning visiting the flowers and aren't visiting the feeders very much yet. I actually take that as a good sign that the flowers we have are meeting their nectar needs. This week I have seen the usual ruby-throats and rufous hummers, but also had a black-chinned hummer visiting the feeder outside the kitchen window yesterday morning. Then it followed me to the big red barn-style garage yesterday and flew frantically around the building, trying to get inside of it. I was wondering if they poor thing thing thought it was a gigantic red flower.

We had lots of white-lined sphinx and other hawk moths earlier in the season, but not nearly as many the last month or so. I am still seeing lots of gulf frits and some sulphurs, and a couple of days ago saw one zebra longwing swallowtail.

I noticed some bindweed climbing the northern garden fence where I had cucumbers until the drought killed them in July, so I need to go out and get rid of those before they can bloom. That's one blooming vine I just won't tolerate on our property. Yesterday I found more morning glories sprouting on the fence around the dog yard, and I don't usually have morning glories there. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind has managed to sprout and grow there in this dry, hot summer.

Dawn

I have to get rid of three huge blooming Daturas due to its toxicity and kids. One day my mom saw Tanu was playing with Datura flowers and fruits she picked up to make some decoration in her play home. Mom know how toxic it is, she asked me to get rid of those three plants immediately. I have axe them down along with dragon claw. Dragon claw was also become huge plant with tons of the claws. -Chandra

Chandra, I dug up some Datura roots one year, and they are very long, thick almost tap-like and can run for a very long way. I don't think they will come up from any root left in the ground, though, because mine did not.

Someone told me they are banning growing Datura in the city because of young people using the seed pods to get high. Last year there was a lot of media coverage on a few of them that died as a result of their consumption of these seeds. I deadhead my flowers so that no seed pod develops on my Datura. It is a painstaking job sometimes, but I don't want to get rid of mine, nor do I want any kids filching pods from my shrub. If it wasn't worth growing, I wouldn't be so meticulous about grooming it. But, I fully understand because you have small children, and I don't anymore.

Morning glories, including the vine, are also poisonous. as are many, many plants. There are those that are more toxic than others, including Ricinus.

The top 10 most toxic plants are:

1. Castor Bean Plant, Ricinus communis
2. Water Hemlock, Circuta douglasii
3. White Snakeroot, Eupatorium rugosum (milk from cow that ate this, killed Abraham Lincoln's mother)
4. Monkshood, Aconitum napellus
5. White Baneberry
6. Strychnine Tree
7. Brugmansia (contains atropine and scopolamine, the Zombie chemical)
8. Oleander, Nerium sp.
9. English Yew
10. Deadly Nightshade, Atropa belladonna

Also include Choke Cherry, Daphne, and Rhododendons as highly toxic plants. The list goes on, these are just the top 10 + 3 more.

Susan

Update....I think there might be some buds forming on the Moonflower vine. Still nothing on the cardinal climber or be Susan vine. Lots of Grandpa Otts and a pink MG are blooming. But I have a fence section (30') in different area thickly covered with healthy MGs....never one bloom.

I'm still holding out hope.

Susan,

Thank you very much for the info on toxic plants. Datura plants with full of cone shaped flowers were looking so beautiful in the evening and especially late in moon light. But for the safety of kids i have sacrifice the beauty. I have also couple of red caster bean plants, they are taller plants and out of reach of kids, I remove seeds pods when they turn brown.

Tracy, I am sure your fences covered MGs will start blooming soon. Last year i had one with large flowering variety, was growing crazy without any bloom until sep, but when it start blooming, it will be fun to watch.

here couple of pics of late blooming MGs

Tracey,

If you have vines, you'll have blooms sooner or later. Just be sure you're not letting any nitrogen fertilizer get anywhere near them at this time of the year.

One other thought I had is this: if you or any of your neighbors have a backyard security light that shines in this area, that light might be enough to interfere with the bloom by denying them the amount of darkness they need at night. Sometimes flowers that are daylength-sensitive have trouble blooming if they get too much light at night. I had to move my white-flowered moon garden plants to an area farther away from the house/garage/patio after we put up a large security light in that area after we had lived here a few years. I moved them to an area between the garden and a big pecan tree, which is about as far as I could get them from any artificial lighting and see be able to see them ourselves.

Chandra, What beautiful Heavenly Blue morning glories! Blue is my favorite flower color and I try to have something blue in bloom for as much of the year as possible. Your whole yard looks great in that photo too.

Dawn

Beautiful pics Chandra! Thanks for the encouragement. I will attach a pic so you can see my mountain of vines! One of the vines is about the size of a carrot in diameter at the base. I planted the seeds at the fence posts so they must be 8-10' apart. I was at the garden center today and saw how many different MG colors there are, I know next year I will add some new ones. I will make another post to show the MGs I have that are blooming, thankfully!

I checked on the Moon Flower, it looks like some buds are forming, but the leaves are looking stressed now.

I have the Datura and Castor Bean which I am watching closely to see how I feel about them. I hope to be able to remove them when I start to have small children around regularly. My grandbabies live out of state, and my kids still at home are 18+ yo. Does anyone have experience with removing Datura and Castor Bean?

These have really started to take off since the weather has cooled down some.

Tracey,

I'm glad they finally started blooming! Some of my favorite morning glories are the Japanese ones because they are a bit more unique in appearance.

To remove datura and castor bean, just pull up the plants at the end of the season (or, whenever you please). If the ground is too hard from the drought, you might have to dig them out. As long as you get most of the root, the datura probably won't come back. Castor beans cannot handle cold weather, so they won't come back from the roots unless we have the warmest winter ever. The key with both of them to prevent them from becoming invasive is to remove all the seed pods well before they mature. I deadhead datura every week and, if I don't want to save seed from Castor Bean, I remove the flower heads before the seeds dry. In the case of both these plants, if you leave the seed pods on the plant too long, they split open and scatter seed, guaranteeing you'll have plenty of seedlings to pull up the following year.

Dawn

Dawn, here is one of my JMGs that just began blooming today. It is on an Ipomoea nil 'Kikyo Double Purple Picotee', but sometimes, especially the first blooms, can be single, as in this particular case. I still think it is gorgeous!

Susan

Susan those are beautiful! What is the main difference in the Japanese varieties? I see the leaves are not quite so heart shaped.

JMGs are the product of the species "nil" (Ipomoea nil), which the Japanese call Asagao, while the common ones that grow rampantly, are a result of I. purpurea, 'Grandpa Otts', 'Crimson Rambler', 'Milky Way', 'Jamie Lynn', and others.

There is also I. tricolor, from which we get 'Heavenly Blue', 'Blue Star', 'Flying Saucer', 'Pearly Gates', and 'Wedding Bells'.

Many other species comprise the Ipomoea genus such as I. quamoclit or Cypress Vine', I. alba or Moonvine, I. x multifida, or Cardinal Climber, I. lobata or Spanish Flag, and many others just as beautiful, but not as well known. There is a morning glory bush, I. carnea, with pink flowers and large leaves, that I am also growing.

The nil hybrids have trilobed leaves, some of which are also variegted. This particular one, 'Kikyo Double Purple', has small trilobe foliage, and is a smaller vine, 3-4' tall. Mine is every bit of 4' tall and maybe a bit more. It is loaded with buds right now. Others I'm growing are 'Morning Glow', 'Chocolate', which everyone has heard of by now probably, 'Grey Morning Mist', 'Kanoka Red Speckled', 'Plum Delight', and 'Blue-Purple Blizzard'.

They have really been fun to grow. I have grown Chocolate before and always love it for its huge, prolific blooms.

Susan

Susan, That is just so beautiful!

I also love Spanish Flag though I haven't grown it in recent years. In the early 2000s when I grew it every year, I probably got more comments and questions about it than just about anything else in bloom, except maybe foxtail lilies.

My old area where I used to grow numerous morning glories has become too shady for just about everything. Well, the morning glories will grow there, but they get too much shade to bloom much until late in the season when the pecan tree loses its leaves. In the sunnier spots I had pole beans, cucumbers, gourds, winter squash, and yard-long beans instead of morning glories. Of course, since I have previously had morning glories there, there was plenty of Grandpa Ott's springing up everywhere and I let a couple of them stay, but not enough to take over and dominate the fence and keep the veggies from producing. I need to put up new fencing or trellises somewhere before next year away from the veggie garden so I will have a place to grow more vining flowers like I used to have. I'm eyeing a long stretch of fence along the south property line that runs about 200' from the house down towards the road. It actually is 300', but the last 100' nearest the road is completely unimproved clay and nothing much grows in it. With that 200' stretch, though, I could put up woven wire fencing (we have barbed wire there now) and do a lasagna bed there this fall right along that fence line, and I'd have a long stretch of fencing next year where I could plant vining types of plants.

We've had black-eyed Susan vines in bloom for roughly 12 of the years we've been here and they've reseeded, too, ever since the first year I planted them. I guess last year's drought got them and we didn't have any this year. I am determined to have them again next year too. As much as I love growing veggies on the garden fence, I miss having them covered in flowers. Clearly I need a new fence-type trellis just for morning glories, moonvines and black-eyed susan vine.

I noticed yesterday some cardinal climber is sprouting in the pinkeye purplehull pea bed and I left them there.

With the recent rainfall, morning glories are popping up in the garden beds I've been clearing out for fall veggies. One good thing about growing members of the morning glory family is that once you plant them, you'll likely have them forever. Some reseed better than others. We have a 'Flying Saucers' plant growing in a crack in the garage's concrete apron. I haven't grown morning glories there in years (I used to have them on trellises in molasses feed tubs), but we have 'Flying Saucers' growing there every year regardless. The tiny crack is about 1/8" wide and only a few inches long and how the plant survives there is beyond me, but the single vine coming out of that area now sprawls and is blooming and covers an area of concrete about 4' wide and 6' long.

Tracey, Japanese Morning Glories are so gorgeous in person that you just can't believe it. The first ones I ever grew were the chocolate ones, but I've also grown one whose name I don't remember that was a bluish-purplish picotee and a pink picotee. The ones linked below look like the ones I grew in the mid-2000s. Baker Creek also carries a Japanese morning glory mix.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Kikyozaki Morning Glory Mix

I still have the huge section of MGs not blooming, but I am enjoying the others that are. MGs and flowering vines have always fascinated me. There are two more of the Pink Spotted Caterpillars on them. The vines grow up the chainlink of the old dogkennel turned garden shed, when you go inside you can see under all the leaves.

Susan, I looked up 'Chocolate', very unique. Next year I am going to try some different ones.

My Moonflower vine is budding so I have been keeping a close eye on it. Yesterday I noticed some of the leaves were beginning to look "lobed" at the bottom, I think it might be a different plant. I must have planted another vine at the bottom. I dont have any of the Japanese varieties. But I remember planting lots of vines there that never came up, maybe I got some in the swap.

Hummers Paradise in the backyard

I love Chocolate because the blooms are HUGE! and it blooms and blooms and blooms. There is a solid Chocolate, and a Chocolate with a white, picotee edge.

The one photographed below is called Grey Morning Mist. It is also a large bloom and is really coming into its own right now with a lot of blooms.

Dawn, I also have a few Grandpa Ott's, Milky Way, and a bright hot pink/magenta bloom that was supposed to be a Scarlett O'Hara years ago. True Scarlett O'Hara can be hard to find. It is a red bloom,

Chandra, the one bloom at the top of your trellis looks like Wedding Bells, a lavender purple. The others are Grandpa Ott's.

JMGs are best started in pots and transplanted. Don't believe what you hear about them being difficult to transplant because they're not. There is so much misinformation on the web about morning glories, you wouldn't believe it. Mislabelling is one of the worst.

I began buying my seeds from a long-time GW'er by the name of EmmaGrace. She lives in sultry, hot Texas and grows them beautifully and has created so many hybrids of I. nil, it's not funny. I'll attach a link to her eBay, but she also has a website called Morning Glory USA. She sells small amounts of seeds in her packets, but they are worth it. Even if you get one vine from a packet, you can save seeds for next year and trades, etc. JMGs are in great demand as trades. I want to try her seeds of the species I. ochracea, a large, yellow species MG that is beautiful, too. JMGs don't reseed a lot like the I. purpureas do. Neither do the I. tricolors either. So, you do need to save your seeds.

Also JMGs don't need full sun, but do well in partial shade. They will grow in full sun, too, but sometimes it may burn the foliage and this summer's heat really held off the bloom until this last week for me.

EmmaGrace (aka jmglvr) also has seeds for other unique vines and flowers. I'm always checking back in her store because she frequently adds new varieties to her store.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: EmmaGrace's eBay Store`

Chandra, do you get a lot of hummingbirds? With all those gorgeous MGs I bet u do.

Susan you talked about mislabeling...I have Grandpa Otts but it is solid deep purple, not striped like Chandras. Those are so pretty. And my Scarlett Ohara is solid medium pink. Both were in commercial packs. The SO is very old.

I will check out EmmaGraces seeds. I think next year I will have many MGs.

BTW My cardinal climber had a bloom today!

Tracey, Google and find a photo of "Chocolate Rose Silk" morning glory. I like to grow it and "Chocolate" mixed together on a fence.

Chandra, I bet the hummers are loving those vines. I always have a garden and yard full of hummers visiting the vines I have scattered around in various places. They generally don't visit the feeders unless it is raining or something since there's so many blooms for them most of the time.

Susan, That's a really unique shade.

I have morning glories popping up everywhere in the veggie garden, and especially in places where I don't want them. I've been busy yanking them out. I am glad they reseed, but (unfortunately) they can aggressively colonize veggie beds.

Tracey, If your Grandpa Ott's is solid purple, then it isn't Grandpa Ott's. It could be the seed was crossed when it was grown by the seed supplier, or that a packaging/labeling error occurred. Scarlett O'Hara ought to be really red too, but as Susan noted, it is getting harder and harder to find seeds of Scarlett O'Hara that give you the original red Scarlett.

Here's some trivia about Grandpa Ott's morning glory: Seed Savers Exchange was founded by Kent and Diane Ott Whealey. One of the original seeds they wanted to save and distribute was a morning glory seed given to her by her grandfather---and we know that morning glory today as "Grandpa Ott's". I've linked the SSE image below because that is was Grandpa Ott's should look like, right from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The history in the catalog is a little more detailed that what I typed here so you might enjoy reading it too.

Grandpa Ott's is the most prolific reseeder I've ever seen. I bet I yank out hundreds of them from the veggie garden every year, but I also leave plenty and let them climb the fence. They also climb the cornstalks sometimes and even the tomato cages. I leave them when I can and wherever I can because the hummers and other little flying critters love them so. Also, they're simply gorgeous, particularly in August when a lot of stuff isn't looking nearly as good as it did in June.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: SSE: Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory

I went out this morning to take pictures of my MGs. I was amazed, and embarrassed. My Grandpa Otts has the stripes. Even the pink "Scarlet OHare" has subtle stripes. I think I was remembering the pictures I have of it that are not close enough to see the stripes.

"Chocolate Rose Silk" and Chocolate look beautiful. The size of the flowers has got to be huge. Do they produce less flowers since they are so big?

I was looking...closely, at the MGs this evening. I had a runner/vine that had died off, I figured I broke it accidently. Now there are more, just a couple inches above the ground. I think maybe a grasshopper chewed them or maybe a mouse. I've caught a few hoppers and they are all huge. It almost looks like cutworm damage.

Chocolate MG has been a prolific bloomer for me, Tracey. I love it. I have the Solid Chocolate blooms. But there is also the one Dawn talked about - Dawn, is that the one with the white picotee?

These Chocolate blooms are from over a month ago, and are blooming heavier now.

Susan

Susan, Yes, Chocolate Rose Silk is the one with the white picotee. Chocolate and Chocolate Rose Silk bloom prolifically for me too. I especially like them for their unusual color.

I also love the way that the MGs bloom so heavily in autumn. Often, with the ones in full sun, by mid-September they have more flowers than foliage. Some years that hit that mark in mid-August, as do the moonflowers. I'm guessing they are trying to set a lot of seed before the cold hits.

One summer we had that sort of heavy bloom earlier in summer than usual. I think it was in 2004 or 2005. (If it was 2005, we had very severe summer drought, but I was watering heavily.) By August we had more blooms than foliage on Purple Hyacinth Bean and Heavenly Blue morning glories, and it literally stopped traffic. People would be driving by and would see me in the garden and they'd stop, back up, and drive up the driveway just to say hello, introduce themselves and tell me how much they were enjoying the flowers. The only other plants that have stopped traffic like that, as far as I can remember, are castor beans in 2004 (all that rain made them grow to about 15' tall) and the red poppies when they are in bloom on either side of the driveway and in the front pasture. The same year that the castor beans were so tall, I had mixed colors of broom corn growing right beside them that got 12' tall, and hyacinth beans that climbed to the top of the broom corn and then cascaded back down to the ground. It has been a really long time since we have had enough spring/summer rainfall for anything in my front garden to get that big and beautiful since then. The potential was there in 2007, but it stayed too wet too long and all the plants struggled with perpetually wet soil.

With all the hot, dry summers lately, it is harder and harder to remember a year when the soil stayed too wet almost all summer long. One good thing about morning glories, moonvines and their relatives is that they do just as well in dry years as wet ones as long as you can get them a little extra moisture.

Dawn

This one is called Plum Delight, and the blooms are very large, and the foliage is trilobed with very strong variegation.

I am getting excellent bloom right now, Dawn. The Chocolate is very prolific, as is Morning Glow, the Grey Morning Mist, the Kanoko Red Speckled, the Kikyo and Jamie Lynn, not to mention the purps. I'll post more photos as time permits.

I get frequent passersby by car, bicycle, or ambulatory, who want to stop and see the flowers and the butterflies. All gardeners are folks who love to share the fruits of their labor, even if it is just a look at the flowers, with others.

Susan

Beautiful! I am proud to say my Moonvine has buds...I have never seen one flower before and I am anxiously waiting. There are also buds on the mystery vine that is with the moonvine.

My Cardinal vine had one bloom yesterday and about 10 today. I cant wait to see it tomorrow.

YIPPEE, Tracey! Keep us posted on your mystery vine, too!

That's kinda the way it goes with MGs - one day your are totally gobsmacked by blooms, and the next - nada. But you know it will be different the next day yet. I have 3 MGs yet to bloom - the Lavender Moonvine, an unknown, and my Bush Morning Glory. They may not bloom at all since I planted them rather late, but I had to try.

Anxiously awaiting the "mystery" vine......

Susan

Tracey, yes they love these tellies and we have many hummers visiting them.

Dawn, thank you for the note. yes hummers are every where in the garden.

Susan et al, thanks for naming those MGs. I looks like Granpa's Ott seems to be change its color from last year. As dawn mention it is one of the worst invasive, indeed i not planted any this year expect the moon flower. But they are gorgeous.

Have a nice weekend.

Cheers -Chandra