Morning Glory

In my last post about mandevillas, I mentioned the morning glory vine.  It's native to my yard for the past couple of years.  It all started when I bought a packet of seeds to grow morning glories.  I put the seeds in those little pods and watered them daily, then put them in the backyard.  Somehow... the vine found its way to the front yard garden!  Go figure (and no vines in the backyard anymore).

Morning Glory is supposed to be annual.  But mine are perennial.  I didn't think they would come back this year, but they did.  Amidst all of the weeds, the morning glory popped color here and there.

Unfortunately, when I had to weed the garden and make room for other plants, Kim and I had to uproot the morning glory vines.  They were youngsters with weak roots.  They didn't survive the transplant.

I guess that's one of the reasons why I don't want to move the above vine.  It's sharing a trellis with the red mandevilla and I hope they can co-exist.  As the vine grows, I'm attempting to train the red mandevilla to go left and the morning glory to go right.  Wish me luck!

I don't know what color the morning glory will be.  Every year it's a surprise.  The most common color is blue, but last year it was a scarlet color (bright!).

The vine got it's name because the vine only blooms in the morning and only blooms that once.  It grows fairly quickly (if you don't transplant).  The leaves are heart shaped and the blooms are bell-shaped.

I did read that the vine grows best in less watered soil, but I need to water the mandevilla, and the mandevilla rules right now.

I've heard about the moon flower (lpomoea alba) - it has large, fragrant white flowers that open in the evening and close before midday.  Ohhh, that would be cool.

There are also "dwarf morning glory" which grows into a bushy plant in pink, blue, purple and rose blooms.

Below is a picture that I took last year of the morning glory in my front weed garden.  I'm hoping the vine growing right now is the same scarlet color...

Update:  The littlest struggling morning glory vine in the corner of the small front garden bloomed. Heck, there are even two blooms.  The picture is dark, but it's definitely a scarlet one.

But what gets me is that this is a struggling vine and it's blooming..... yet I have this big huge, lovely vine going bonkers growing next to the mandevilla and the vine won't bloom!  It's gone crazy growing, but no flowers. Grrrrrrr