Go to google.com and type in 'everything about morninglories'.

There is a lot to learn right hear, why not post your questions. What 3 types of morning glory are you going to plant?

Hi editornj! Some links about Morning Glories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/Asagao/Yoneda_DB/E/menu.html

Some MG vines are annuals and some are perennials. Which morning glories are you planning to plant?

Thanks!

Scarlet O'Hara
Heavenly Blue
A tall mix from Burpee
and
Moonflower

I just saw a post on the forum about covering a fence and it answered a couple of my questions. I think searching this forum is probably my best bet for info. I like to hear different people's experiences.

Cheers.

There's a GW member named Ron (ron_convolvulaceae) who is an MG expert and can likely give you more and better info then any website. Joseph (gerris - not sure if this is his correct GW member name) is another GW member who is extremely knowledgeable.

editornj - The MGs that you are growing are all annuals. Scarlet O'Hara and Tall Mix are both Ipomoea nil, Heavenly Blue is Ipomoea tricolor, and Moonflower is Ipomoea alba. All wonderful choices. All do well in warm weather! I don't consider any of them invasive as the seeds that may drop to the ground in Winter will probably not make when it gets to the freezing point.

All of them can grow quite long and if they are pinched, they will spread nicely. I grow one seed per 5 gallon container and they get quite large. So if I were you, I certainly wouldn't plant all the seeds of each packet. Two to three seeds would cover a 15' area nicely with fertilizer.

karyn1 - What scholarly title does Ron (ron_convolvulaceae) have?

Beckygardener I have no idea if he's a horticulturist or self taught but he's has an amazing wealth of information.

I think right here is a good source for information on morning glories. I will say your choices are excellent for a lazy weekend gardener. They need very little care and maybe water if it is not raining for a week. They need full sun to grow and bloom well.

Also, it is wise to not crowd the vines. For your 15" fence plant 3 or 4 seeds of each kind and plant about 6" between plants and enjoy. You can always start more later if you want. I start more seeds than I need and plant the strongest seedlings.

I hope you enjoy your morning glories this year!

Karen

P.S. I included a link to help with the moonflower vine seeds. The instructions given here are good to use for all your morning glories too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Moonflower vines

That's a pretty time consuming method to start MG seeds and moonflower seeds.

Just go on over and check out the winter sowing forum and go from there.

Start those MG and moonflower vine seeds using the WS method and you won't need to nick and seeds, soak any seeds, just follow the instructions on the forum on how to WS/Spring sow seeds and get them out in the next week or 2 in your zone editornj and you will have the seeds germinating within a week or 2.

No damping off worries, no need to harden off the seedlings, and you will find you have the healthiest seedlings you've ever seen or had.

Been doing it this way for 8 years, never fails, have 100% germination and no problems at all. I just start mine towards the end of April and into the first week in May because my zone is colder than yours.

Easiest way to start the seeds, best way to start the seeds, wintersowing.

Fran

One more thing editornj, The Scarlet'O Hara seeds are ipomoea nils and they do better sprouting when it is warm day and night. Cold temperatures below 60ish degrees is bad for the ipomoea nils and can result in some problems when starting the seeds.

If you nick the seeds it is very important to provide clean seed starter and warmth because if it is cold the nicked seeds are more vulnerable to rotting. I suggest if you winter sow your ipomea nils it might be better not to nick them. If the seeds have been sitting around for a second year the seed coat can become hardened and it might take a long time to sprout. If I know seeds are older more than a year old I will nick them,plant in seed starter and make sure they are warm all the time because it produces more sprouts.

Winter sowing is great and worth a try. I think it is fun to try different ways of planting my seeds. I like to wintersow my sunflowers and my climate allows for various morning glory volunteers which are technically winter sowed by nature. I prefer not to winter sow my ipomoea nils because they need to be warm all the time yet I see a few volunteer ipomoea nils since my climate is mild enough to allow them to survive the winter.

Karen

I don't know where you are getting your information on germinating MG seeds, whether they are Ipomoea nils or ipomoea purpurea but I can tell you this, with more than 30 years of experience growing them on my own as an adult and doing so as a child on a farm with my grandparents, I've never heard, seen or experienced anything that you are claiming.

MG seeds will sprout when given the right conditions whether it be inside under lights or outside as direct sown, winter sown or from reseeded volunteers.

Whether they are soaked over night, soaked overnight after being nicked, nicked and sown, just direct sown or wintersown, they germinate just fine when mother nature says it's time to do so.

Most instructions put on the packages of seeds by the manufacturers are their ideas of germination, they never discussed these instructions with mother nature, who is the one that truly sets the rules for seed germination.

below 60'ish temps is bad for I nils germination? OK, problem is they don't know that, they don't know what the temps are, they just germinate when they are supposed to do so, and they will.

I've never had an MG seed rot on me when WS outside, whether they where soaked overnight and split before they where sown, never had one trouble with old seeds being too hard on the outside either to germinate.

Fact is, last year I WS some 15 year old scarlet O'Hara seeds that had been stuck in a drawer for years and just found. Didn't do anything special with them other than WS the seeds in miracle grow potting mix that was inside a recycled salad container with drainage holes in the bottom and air vent holes in the top.
Outside the went along with all the other containers of MG seeds. They got rained on, flooded on, matter of fact 15 inches of rain in less than 2 weeks and where floating around my backyard for a bit. water gone, soil wet, temps got cold again, then got warm, and the seeds germinated just fine. all 15 of the scarlet o'hara seeds germinated just fine, just like all the other MG seeds that where out there.

More times than not, the energy involved in "starting seeds the right way indoors under lights" and all the fancy equipment needed to do so, just makes more work and more stress in starting seeds that is really not needed.
Not only is it not needed, but the instructions end up being a waste of time as well and the creates fear and panic in far to many people, making them believe that seed starting is to difficult and complicated to do.

Just WS the seeds and forget about them. When the time is right, the seeds will germinate and you will have more seedlings than you know what to do with, mores varieties than you can imagine, and no stress or expensive setups to deal with as well.

Let mother nature to do work for you, that's what she was meant to do and that's how the seeds where meant to germinate, naturally not with artificial lights and clean sterile soil.

Fran

I live in Florida. We've had a several years of winters that had freezing temperatures. I grew both I. nils and I. purpureas last year. Lots of seeds from both species dropped to the ground. We had several weeks of very cold (freezing) weather this winter. It has been warm here for almost 2 months. I've only seen the I. purpurea seeds sprout. I believe the I. nil seeds were frozen and turned to mush from the freezing temperatures. There were a lot more I. nil seeds scattered around than I. purpurea. I just gave up collecting them all! LOL!

There was one container sheltered from the cold this winter and there are several I. nil vines that have sprouted in it.

My experience has been the same as ilovegardening2005.

Same weather was here in Jacksonville, East-Texas. In fact, we had the coldest winter, including snow, than I ever remember. And, it was cold for longer periods of time last year than normal. Yet, I have had quite a few nils and a few purpureas popping up that spent the winter on the frozen ground.

Stating that Morning Glory seeds sitting around one year or longer causes them to have harder seed coats is absolutely not so. I started seeds that were 8 years old a couple of weeks ago and every single one popped up sooner than seeds just harvested from plants I grew indoors over the winter.

beckygardener, you must have your own private micro climate in your garden beds in Florida, because I just can believe you have "frozen turned to mush" I nil seeds in Florida from the cold and freezing temps.

Can't even imagine where in the world you are living in Florida either to have these problems; least of all after speaking with inlaws now living in the following cities in Florida, Pensacola, Winterhaven, jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, Fort Myers, Orlando.

All of them tell me that their usual method of letting I nil seeds fall to the ground to reseed along their fences, has produced the exact same results this year as it has for the past, anywhere from 10-30 years; mass number of reseeded vines that cover the fences. Nothing new, nothing different, no problems, no "mush seeds from the freezing temps."

Your claims just don't add up or make any sense.

Fran

Oh, Emma, how did you enjoy that snow?

Hi Fran,

The snow was fun for a while, but I only like to 'visit' the snow . . . lol. Too bad my 4 granddaughters were not here to enjoy it. This time we had snow on the ground for 5 straight days. Usually when it snows here it starts to melt and go away by the next day. But our temps were very cold for our area last year. In the teens for several days straight - and on more than one occasion. In fact we had snow 3 different times. whoo whoo

I'd rather be in the tropics any day *-*

Emma

Fran - I never get I. nil volunteers unless they are in a sheltered area. All my water gardening containers had ice covering them again this year. The I. albas don't come back here from seed as volunteers either.

I have already gotten about 30 I. purpurea volunteers sprouting. The pile of seeds that I dumped all my I. nil vines after pulling them up didn't produce a single volunteer. Your family members are lucky theirs reseeds every year. Do they cover their garden beds with a thick layer of mulch or straw?

Another good website for Japanese Morning Glories:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http://mg.biology.kyushu-u.ac.jp/&lp=ja_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

I had a lovely true red Scarlett O'Hara volunteer for several years in my front garden. I kept it from coming back inadvertantly by collecting all the produced seeds.

I usually get the varieties that I no longer want re-seeding. lol

I lose some volunteer seedlings because our weather fluctuates from hot to cold and hot to cold. Different varieties have more or less volunteers. Fluctuating weather like we have causes sprouting and then freezing or failure to thrive of the sprouts. Right now Scarlett O Hara has plenty of volunteers,some i nil varieties have a few or no volunteers and the i purpureas are going crazy with volunteers so I have to thin them out every year. There are some i nil varieties almost as prolific as i purpurea but there are some not so prolific and I must save a few seeds if I want to be sure I still have them. Karen

Check out my ipomoea purpurea volunteers and I removed this vine and seeds after the first freeze.
{{gwi:1336086}}

"Your family members are lucky theirs reseeds every year. Do they cover their garden beds with a thick layer of mulch or straw?

Nope, wouldn't call it lucky in any way shape or form, not when it has been occurring for at least 10 years and maximum of 30 years.

I would call it exactly what I nil does in Florida.

They mulch with both straw and or bark mulch, depends on the year and the mood they are in, how they want the beds to look for that year.

Thing is, it has no bearing on whether the I nil or any MG seeds reseed. They do it every year, regardless of the temps, the type of mulch used, it's just what they do plain and simple.

Fran

Wow! Are the I. nils considered invasive at your relatives' homes? I've never had that problem. And no one I've shared seeds with locally has had to worry about it either. They might get one or two I.nil volunteers, but that's about it. Very few if any at all.

I do know I. purpureas can be downright invasive here. I grow those in areas where they can't easily reseed and make tons of volunteers. The above photo posted by ilovegardening2005 reminds me of how invasive that species can be here in Florida!

Another neat Japanese website showing MG species plants as well as Kyushu University morning glories.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kyushu University Systematic picture catalog

Ipomoea nils such as kikyozaki,large flower such as Heian No Izume or dwarfs such as Kawaii or Sunsmiles are not as invasive as i purpureas aka Grandpa Ott or Scarlet Rambler for a few examples. Ipomoea nils have a lot of variety in vine size and habits. We even have some i nils that are stingy with the seeds so any volunteers would be welcomed.

The SOH are moderately self sowing here mainly because our fluctuating temperatures keep killing most of the new sprouts until about the middle of March. The i purpurea sprouts die too but the sheer number of seeds makes it look like a hostile takeover of seedlings even though I do the clean up every year.

Lately, I`m growing smaller less invasive ipomoea purpureas like the hige double bloomed vines because they make fewer volunteers.

OK, I know I'm missing something here in this thread, Joseph, Emma, can you explain it to me?

Starts off with the claims that I nil above 60 degree temps to germinate and below that temps creates difficulty with germination, inaccurate info, then we get cold and freezing temps prevent I nil now from re-seeding in Florida, to my relatives in Florida being lucky that their I nil re-seed every year and have been for 30 years for some of them, to now questions about whether these I nil seeds are considered invasive in my relatives yards?

All this because

1. the info provided originally was incorrect

2. the incorrect info was corrected.

3. suggested to WS the MG seeds all kinds

4. told about my relatives in Florida whose I nil seeds always reseed

So I'm asking how it went from one thing to another and why it keeps going and going with so many absurd questions about I nil seeds that self sow in my relatives yards in Florida.

Invasive? Not to them, but then again, invasive species can be truly an invasive and dangerous species of plants and it can be "invasive" in the eyes of the beholder.

In the case of my relatives, just so you know beckygardener, they let the seeds drop where they drop on purpose so that they do reseed where they want them to and they don't have to start them every year. They want a huge number of vines, growing right where they are to cover fences, huge trellises, arbors and the like, and they have been doing this for as long as they have lived in their homes.

Half of the seeds are left to drop to the ground, and the other half are collected for friends, family, trades with other people on GW, sent to me, etc.

But, to think or say that I nil seeds won't re-seed in Florida is absurd, they do all the time, to say otherwise is really not telling the truth.

Now can we let this continued banter about the I nil seeds being invasive in my relatives homes, I nil seeds don't reseed in Florida because it's too cold in the winter, can we just let it end already.

Posting valid correct info on morning glory vines and seeds is wonderful, providing incorrect info is never helpful to anyone.

Fran

Thanks for the Kyushu link Becky. I think everyone who knows anything about morning glories should post what they have learned and keep sharing as much as they can. Let`s keep talking about our gardens!

Fran - That's wonderful that your relatives are delighted to have I. nil volunteers coming back every year. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen at everyone's home. :-(

I have been growing MGs for several years and have learned about them through my experiences as well as sharing with & obtaining information from others. I frequent and participate on numerous websites and forums. Posting my experiences, my photos, and my methods of germination and growing these beautiful vines certainly does not qualify me as any kind of expert. Nor do I make any such claim or title.

I, personally, have the highest regard for the Japanese who have been growing and studying them for centuries, which is why I post the Japanese websites links. I've, personally, gained the most information from the Japanese websites. (You'll have to copy and paste each link listed below in your browser.)

Here is a little background history from a meeting in 1999 on the topic of "the morning glory and its closely related species":
http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/asagao/yoneda_db/e/ipomoea/04.html

Yoshiaki Yoneda's online publication is shared freely with all:
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fprotist.i.hosei.ac.jp%2Fasagao%2Fyoneda_db%2Fe%2Fmenu2.html&lp=ja_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

My favorite Morning Glory (asagao) website is Kodansha Panorama Illustrated book:
http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/Asagao/Yoneda_DB/E/Introduction/htmls/cover_front.html
This online reference book is a wealth of knowledge, IMHO!

editornj likes hearing about other people`s experiences so I shared my experience. I`m a hobbyist but not a expert. I have never claimed to be a expert.

The websites Becky has mentioned were the key to most of my knowledge as far as the morning glories I grow. Those sites are good as gold for information and inspiration! Karen

This is the picture I wanted to share about this topic.I imagine growing conditions will effect how many volunteers you get. I can`t help but notice some ipomoea nils make more volunteers than others. I tend to shy away from growing the ones that make a ton of seeds because it is work to keep them weeded out. That is my experience and story on that one. Karen

Scarlett O`Hara is fine provided you don`t plant too many,deadhead or pick the seeds and clean up the vine after it is finished blooming.imho.