Growing Morning Glories

Sometimes you just have to plant some blatant food for the soul! Summer mornings without the colorful riot of morning glory blooms across my back fence just wouldn't be complete.

Morning Glories are embarrassingly easy to grow and add a festive touch to any yard. With a little creative planting you can hide an ugly area or make a shaded arbor to sit under.

Wait to plant them until about a week prior to the last frost in your area. You can check The Old Farmer's Almanac charts and the USDA Hardiness Zones, through the US National Arboretum, for your area's information. International information is also available on the USNA site.

These delicate beauties can vine up to 15 feet and will need support. A trellis, tree stump or old wire fence is ideal. If you have a privacy fence you will generally need to tack a layer of chicken wire, lengths of string or other support near the ground and up the fence to get nice coverage.

The location you chose needs full sunlight and average soil. Loosen the soil to about 2" deep so it will be easy for the roots to grow and will hold moisture better. Saturate this with water a day or two before you are ready plant. Soaking the seeds for about 24 hours in warm water prior to planting softens the outer hull and hastens germination. Without this it can take two to three weeks to see your first sprouts, sometimes longer!

Plant seeds about an inch deep with soil lightly patted down over them. Keep it evenly moist until you see the first heart shaped pairs of leaves. Once established, morning glories are fairly drought tolerant and will require less watering. You will get even more profuse flowering if you lightly fertilize once a month after they start blooming. With very little further care you should have a lovely morning display right up until the first hard frost.

Morning glories are annuals, but they reseed themselves readily. So readily, in fact, that they can become a real pest if you aren't careful! Do not plant them close to trees or shrubs. They will climb whatever they can reach. Their vines become so numerous and the foliage so dense that they can damage limbs with their weight and cut the other plant's ability to receive enough light to survive. Choosing a location that can be mowed right up to the edge of the Glories will help. Regular close mowing helps by preventing their spread into unwanted areas.

Some cut the dead vines away from their support in the late fall and dispose of them. Mine are on a stout fence and I usually leave a season or two in place to achieve a bulkier look. As the vines quickly reach the top of the fence they begin to drape over in a lovely cascade of color. I do gather as many of the seed as I can once all the pods are dry. This helps prevent serious over seeding, which will create problems with next year's growth unless regularly thinned all through spring. Gathered seeds make a nice gift, tied up in a wisp of cloth with a ribbon, to be given to gardening and non-gardening friends. Morning Glory is especially nice for the "brown thumbs" who've never been able to grow anything with success!

The easiest way to collect the seed is to use a cookie sheet. Press the edge of the pan against the plants' support. Begin to crumble the clusters of seed pods with your free hand, catching the chaff and falling seed in your pan as you go. As you fill the pan, empty it onto an old sheet or tarp. When you have gathered as much of the seed as you want, you will then need to clean it. Pull out all the stems and trash you can. A stiff breeze will help you with the next step so you might want to save this action for a slightly blustery day. Gather the seed into a bag and making sure the wind is hitting your back,slowly pour them back out onto the tarp. This is a style of winnowing. What you are doing is allowing the wind to blow away the lighter chaff of seed hulls and debris as it is falling. Once cleaned of debris, bag the seed in air tight containers for winter storing or Christmas giving.