Morning Glories: The Saga Continues

Well, of all things. I finally got a couple of morning glory blooms! I think what's happened is that as the sun gets higher every day, the morning glories get more morning sun, prompting a bloom or two. See the pictures below, which I made on July 24. There is a problem (which I've had consistently when planing seeds) What comes up are not what they were supposed to be. In this case they're purple and the seed package said they'd be red. Read on after the pictures for the complete story of the "Red" morning glories.




































I planted what was supposed to be red morning glory seeds in early May and because I've had bad luck with seeds for a time, I got impatient when they didn't come up in a timely fashion, but the seedlings finally emerged about May 30. This is what they looked like by June 2. The seed package said to thin them to 1 foot apart, but I decided to see how they did without thinning.

By June 10 they were well on their way to the top of the railing, still no blooms however.




By June 19, they had grown to the top of the deck railing. Once they got up to the deck, I reused some plastic netting for the morning glories to run on that I had previously bought for black-eyed peas to run on, but turned out not to be heavy enough for the peas. You can see it in the picture below





Below is a view of the vines from inside of the deck and they have started to twine around a rook for a hanging basket.








And finally the first ones to reach for the sky! I've pruned two others that reached the top of the deck rail, but I let these grow to see what they would do and they began to fork in abundance. No flower buds were apparent on any of the vines yet.














Well, the morning glories reached the top of the deck railing and twisted around each other. See below. Unfortunately I've got beau coups vine, which would be OK if I had planted a sweet potato, but not so great for morning glories. I did a bit of Googling on the web and I think I found out what's wrong. Although they get lots of sunshine in the afternoon, they're in the shade in the morning and they have to have morning sun to bloom; otherwise I guess they'd be called Afternoon Glories--sort of like four o'clocks, they are picky about the time of day to bloom. I also found out that for my location on the deck, I should have planted moon flowers, which bloom in the afternoon and sometimes all night. I had some when I lived in New Orleans and they did put on quite a display and got lots of oohs and aahs from the night people, I lived a block outside the French Quarter and had lots of night-people passersby; usually noisy and drunk but they did enjoy the moon flowers.














I guess I'll leave the morning glory vines for the rest of the summer, but next year I'll plant yellow jasmine to grow on the deck railing--and probably moon flowers too because they'll outgrow the jasmine--and I'll be on the lookout for a better place to plant morning gloris.

The Farm House on the 4th of July

The "farm house" on the 4th of July. Click on the image to enlarge it.
















Here's a special patriotic pot of red (verbena) white (verbena) and blue (salvia.) Again, click on the image to see the blue.

Volunteers

My mother called plants that came up on their own without being planted "volunteers." Maybe it's a widespread usage, but I've not heard it anywhere but from my mother. She used to tell a story about an unmarried, dim-witted woman who got pregnant. Someone asked her who the father was, and she said she didn't know, it just volunteered. Hmmm. Anyway, I've had some interesting volunteers this year. Click on any of the images to get an enlarged view.

First all the zinnias in the birdbath bed volunteered from last year's plants. When I dead-headed the blossoms, I threw them into the bed, and this spring, guess what. I had beau coups zinnias that came up on their own and I had to thin them out ruthlessly--and they were pretty true to those I planted last year, plus a few I didn't remember, like a pure white one that I'm going to keep seed from. Here's this year's zinnias in the birdbath bed.

















In spite of the urban legend that you can't transplant zinnias, I even transplanted some of my volunteers to pots. Here's a picture of a pot of zinnias that share the space with a rooted coleus.





























And on the right is another pot of transplanted volunteer zinnias sharing a pot with a volunteer ilex of some unknown variety that volunteered in the pot two years ago.












In addition, I've had a few others:

Last year I had red salvia in two pots that I put pink geraniums in this year. I'm pretty "cheap" by nature, so I reused the dirt in the pots. Guess what, I had red salvia come up in both pots to compete with the geraniums. I didn't think the red looked good with the pink, so after I dead-headed the geraniums , I let the salvia bloom. Then when the geraniums started to bloom again, I dead-headed the salvia. Pesto!! double duty pots that are alernately red and pink.

Here on the right are the pots in their "pink Phase."



























Although not strictly a "volunteer" I have a new spout coming up from my yucca. Here 'tis.





















And also, not strictly a volunteer, but a surprise anyway, I have a caladium coming up in a hanging basket of verbena. In early spring (April) I planted several caladium tubers in pots, but I either planted them too deep or upside down, a common mistake I make. Telling top from bottom of a caladium tuber for me is like telling the sex of baby chicks--I'm at sea. Anyway, I fished most of the caladiums out of the pots and planted them in the ground in front of some coleus I rooted from a mother plant I got last year and wintered over. It's a wonderful plant by the way, grows like wild fire, roots like the dickens, and never puts up those annoying coleus "flowers." Here's the mother coleus.




















Here's the bed with the caladium and rooted coleus.



















And here is a picture of the caladium in the verbena pot:
























And finally, here's a pine seedling in it's second year that volunteered in the yucca pot. I transplanted it this year to a pot of its own, which it's sharing temporarily with white and red verbena and a kalanchoe I'm rooting. My goodness how I love to root stuff! Such power!