Morning glory are pretty. I read from the instructions from my seed pack I purchased that it is very easy to grow. However, I have tried so many times, the seeds will germinate, looks healthy but showing leaves, not green enough, looks like no nutrients at all. I have them in good soil, surely with nutrients but still stunted growth. Does anyone have a good solution to this problem? Thanks. I am in Vancouver, the weather is pretty mild. jessie
What are the light levels you're giving them? It might just be a case of giving them more light until they green up.
I've read that morning glories do well in poor soil, and that the way to kill them is to enrich the soil. If that's so, you're being too good to morning glories by giving them that good soil; you'd do better putting them in poor soil.
Aren't morning glory invasive here on the west coast? I spent years pulling that stuff out - it wanted to climb up and strangle every bush.
Coast, you are thinking of bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis, morning glory usually refers to the genus Ipomoea. I don't see a lot of Ipomoea grown in the GVRD. It needs the heat to thrive, so won't do well until the warmth of summer hits. This may not be the best year for them, judging by the temps we are getting this spring. There was a lovely planting of Ipomoea here at the Garden last summer.
I wonder what would have happened if you'd fertilized their soil instead of pulling them out - I keep running into stuff that suggests that morning glory really hates nutrient-rich soil. I'm not a morning glory expert, but what I've read indicates that the common name morning glory is used for more than one sort of plant, and that one is invasive while the other isn't. Saltspring Seeds sells purple morning glory seeds, of which they say: In a garden shop a while ago I looked at a package of morning glory seeds. The back of the package said something like this: Sorry I can't give you the seed company's name in that latter example - I didn't buy the seeds. So none of this is the voice of (my) experience here. I'm just noting what I've read.
Thanks for spelling that out - now I know the difference, but since I've been calling bindweed "morning glory" for so long - just hearing the name gives me shudders!
A lot of people here call it morning glory (bindweed). The flowers, white, is pretty too but so invasive and threatening... I have to keep pulling them out.... The real morning glory is not invasive, hard to grow, may be too cool for it to grow. 2 yrs ago, I grew one successfully, so pretty and blue flowers, rare flowers.... Last year, I tried again the blue morning glory, not successful at all, nothing grew ok. This yr I bought multi-color seeds from the shop and tried again, doing badly again, even though I saw one or two flowers appearing but the plant isn't growing well.
I have had trouble growing morning glory in the past, but have recently had success. I find it easiest to start indoors, since they need warmth, or wait until it warms up outside. Even though it isn't invasive, once you have successfully grown morning glory, you may always have morning glory, since it seeds abundantly. I have found seeds sprouting outdoors just recently with the help of the few days of warm sun we had.
Since this is an international forum, I should point out that while Ipomoea spp. are not generally considered invasive in our region, they can be pests in warmer areas, where planting them may be restricted. I know most are prohibited in Arizona for example.
