South American Plants – Morning Glory

Name – This annual plant is called the Morning Glory because it blooms so early in the day that it was always open even when the earliest riser got out of bed and it’s just as notable that the flowers run out of steam by mid afternoon and close. It’s said that if you don’t see them before breakfast, you probably won’t see them at all. The botanical name Ipomoea comes from the Greek, ips = worm and homois = being like, because of its pale, worm like stem.

Description - The Ipomoea twines clockwise around a support and it is said of this plant, as it is of its common cousin, Bindweed, that if you untwine it and try to make it twine the other way, it will become disgusted and die. In fact it doesn’t – life is never that simple - but the Morning Glory can be killed in the experiment and it’s suggested that this happens because the cells of the plant that carry nourishment to the flowers and leaves actually become fractured during the process of being untangled and twisted in the opposite direction and so the plant starves to death.

Origin – This is a plant that loves the sun, so give it heat from the start, soak seeds in warm water for twenty-four hours before planting to speed germination and plant about an inch deep. Even if you want just one morning glory, plant at least two or three seeds for insurance – if they all come up, you can pull out all but the strongest when they are an inch or so high. Depending on the morning glory variety, supports need to be up to twelve feet high. Morning glories do beautifully on trellises made of nothing more than fishing line and nails which gives an almost invisible support for the vine – using this method you can create unusual and lovely shapes (triangles, curves) covered in Morning Glories for very little money. Be aware that although the first frost will kill this flower, some types of morning glories reseed to the point of becoming invasive if the soil remains warm.

For Decoration -The hop twists itself up a support in the opposite direction to the Morning Glory, which makes them ideal companion plants if you want to cover a particularly ugly pole or support, as one plant will fill in the gaps left by the spiral of the other.

South American Morning Glory photograph by tostie14, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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