Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!
So I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: I am NOT a morning person. Unlike my husband who can jump out of bed at a moment’s notice, I take serveral minutes (okay, more like several hours) to become human at the start of each day. Therefore, when something can actually bring a smile to my face before 8:00am (besides my lovely children, of course) you know it must be good.
The brilliant purple and blue blooms that greet me each day!
This is why today I just HAD to write about my Morning Glories. I’ve always been a fan of climbing vines and am constantly looking for new varieties and colors to add to my garden. This year, I decided to try my hand at growing Morning Glories from seed. I sure am glad that I did!
After starting these seeds indoors, I moved my three small 6″ tall shoots out to the back yard with little hope of them amounting to much. They now COVER the old
laundry line pole as well as our backyard lampost and fence. Every morning I am greeted by hundreds of blooms, ranging in color from a light to dark blue, purple, and magenta. These blooms appear early in the morning (as the name suggests) and then fade by early afternoon. However, the cooler the temperature, the longer the blooms last. In fact, my vines are still blooming and it is nearly October! Due to the cooler temperatures, it is not unlikely that these flowers are still adorning my backyard when I return from work in the evening.
These vines are great for covering “less than perfect” structures.
As you read in a previous post, I spent all of this summer pregnant with twins. As you can imagine, my time in the garden was limited and bending over or squatting to tend my plants became nearly impossible. Despite my lack of presence in the garden, the Morning Glories flourished! These plants require little in the way of care and actually tend to do better when left alone. They thrive in poor soils and drier conditions. Just give them a good amount of sunlight and a few
drinks while getting established and they’ll be good to grow! One tip: if starting them from seed, soak the seeds for 24 hours prior to planting. Morning Glory seeds tend to have quite a hard shell and this will soften them enough to stimulate root growth. While marketed as annuals, I have heard of the plants returning year after year in protected locations.
Enjoy the photos! I sure enjoy seeing them every morning…and that’s saying a lot for someone like me 🙂
Until next time,
A close up view of one of my favorites!
