July 6, 2010

• Moonflower Mix up

  

   

  I'm talking about the Ipomea alba Moonflower, the relative of morning glory, not the sprawling relative of Jimsonweed.  Anyway, I love them. They are so nice in the fall the way they glow in the night garden, and I like to see the sphinx moths make their nightly visits. But I've always had a hard time getting them to germinate. I have a few vines every year, but just a fraction of the seeds that I plant grow. This year instead of planting them where I wanted them,  I decided to try planting them in pots and then when they are up about six  inches, I would transplant them to the base of the wrought iron crook that serves as a trellis.

   

  That is the way I did it the first year I had moonflowers --  only because we had not moved into our new home yet at planting time. We had a really hot May that year, and I grew them in little pots on the patio until I finally had a garden to put plant them in -- in early June. They did well, though. Every pot grew a fine vine and when they bloomed it was glorious -- a  parade of glowing white blossoms every evening. I enjoyed them so much that every year since then I've hoped to replicate my success with moon flowers. I've never come close, though. I tried nicking them and soaking them first, sprouting them in wet paper towel, and just  poking them into the ground, but it seemed like a miracle when one of them grew.  

   

  I had high hopes this year, though. I would do exactly what I did the year they did so well. I planted them in good potting soil in early May, 3 to 5 seeds in a pot, put them in the sun on the patio  and kept them watered good. And waited! Nothing happened. A time or two, I unearthed a pot to see if the seeds were still there. They were, but they didn't look any different than when I planted them. After a month of nothing, I gave up.

   

  When it was time to plant up some things for the Festival in the park at Will Rogers, I used some of those pots and emptied the rest of the pots in a bucket.

   

  This week, I noticed a moon flower seedling growing in an odd place in the garden -- far away from the trellis where last years vines had been. You can't mistake a moonflower seedling. Those seed leaves are two inches in diameter, and with two of them, they do stand out. Twice as big as any squash or pumpkin seedling. It was growing in a spot where I had pulled up a big poppy plant that had turned brown after it bloomed. I guess I had used some of the  soil from the bucket to fill in the hole. In the next couple of days, I discovered five other moonflower seedlings growing around the garden. None grew anywhere near the trellis.  I've transplanted four of them to the trellis now, though, and am leaving the rest to grow where they came up.

   

  Now I'm wondering what the people who bought the plants I donated to our plant sale will think about the huge strange seedlings that are growing beside the plants they bought. Most of them won't know what it is, but I hope a few of them will let the moonflowers grow. I think they will be glad they did.

   

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  • 4:05 pm
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