Ipomoea - My New Favourite Plant

Ipomoea has to be one of my favourite annual flowers. These seedlings are only three weeks old but they're already absolutely beautiful- a hint of what's to come as they grow over the coming months.

Ipoemoea, or Morning Glory as it is also known, is a half hardy annual whose wiry stems twine around upright supports. It has heart shaped leaves and large trumpet-like flowers that look great growing over trellises and fences in the summer with foliage that is light enough to make it perfect  to weave its way through other shrubs and trees. The trumpet shaped flowers     only last for a single morning but, once they start flowering in mid summer, they produce new blooms day after day.

The certainly aren't the easiest plant to grow but, if you can find room for them in a sunny, well-drained and sheltered spot in your garden they're well worth the effort. I'm growing 'Heavenly Blue' this year which produces lovely light blue flowers and can't wait to see the first flowers that should be here in July.

Comments

[Ox]

3 weeks? And I tought mines were slow.. They look like that at 1 week at leds, but a bit taller(maybe too much red?). It's my first MG grow, nice picture there. Greetings.

[Pamela]

Hola, and thanks for stopping by mine.

Love the morning glories, which grow in abundance here. I rip out bits, root them in water bottles and give them away - and still they multiply. We have a 130 metres along the side of our garden we'd love to cover it in them, but it's taking time.

[Liz]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Here is the wiki link on Morning Glory. It's fascinating to hear that gardeners from other parts of the world have such problems with the plant - here in Northern Uk it's grown as a half hardy annual and is actually quite tricky to grow successfully!

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

The cultivar that I am growing is called Heavenly Blue which is not hardy at all in this country. Judging from the experiences some of you have had in hotter climes I can understand why you are wary of this plant!

[Patrick]

Morning glories and bindweed are the same plant, and it's horribly invasive. My garden is full of it left over by some previous gardener, and it will be years before it's finally all gone.

The leaves of my bindweed look a little different from your plants, so they may not be exactly the same.

[Liz]

Alyssa - not sure if they are the same plant. If they are we never have good enough weather here for them to last over the winter. In fact, some summers it isn't even warm enough for them. Are you sure it is morning glory? Bindweed looks very similar, normally with white flowers, but is horribly invasive.

[Alyssa]

Hopefully these are different than the Morning Glories we have here in the States - the previous owners of our house planted some along our fence and they are taking over everything and they will not die. They wind around my daylillies, up my rain barrel, out into the middle of the grass, etc.

[Jo]

I've never grown Ipomoea but I do agree that it's a stunning plant. There are some nice colour shades too, from the lighter blue right through to deep purple.

[Dan]

I saw these grown on a long pole of bamboo that was probably three 6' pieces affixed together. It was pretty cool, I have been thinking of trying it this year.