morning glory sprouts

catjac1975

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it is interesting how different people have such different experiences.

the purple flowering morning glories here have not ever come back from seed as anything other than what they've always been. no mutations noted yet.

@canesisters & @catjac1975 do you have a lot of sand in your soil? around here the places we've grown them in the past are either heavy clay or along the fence in a few spots and of course the gravel mulch. the heavy clay area will sprout new plants any time we've had enough rains. it's been years since we had plants there that were allowed to drop fresh seeds. i scrape them a few times a season and try to pull out any that make it to flowering stage. they can smother the veggies if i don't get them in time. i'm quite happy to use it as worm food... once they get going they seem to do ok in the hard baked clay, but i've not specifically tried to see what happens during a drought if i don't water them because they are pesky plants in the gardens/veggies and i don't have them growing other places that i let go dry. i remove them as soon as i can...

@canesisters how much light are they getting? i'll send you seeds if i can find some this season. i just ripped out some plants from one of the bean gardens, but i think i have a few in the squash patch that i can leave and harvest seeds from... they are purple.
Yes I have sandy soil. My guess though is that in Michigan you have much colder temps.in the winter making the seed unviable. The seed does not come true..
 

Pulsegleaner

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Morning glory stay in check here. also. However it does seem that when they seed themselves they revert to the wild bindweed. That is a horrific invasive barely attractive plant.
it is interesting how different people have such different experiences.

the purple flowering morning glories here have not ever come back from seed as anything other than what they've always been. no mutations noted yet.

The answer seems to rely on the fact there is MORE THAN ONE species in the mix. The common Morning glory is Impomoea purpurea which, as it's name suggests has purple flowers naturally, so one would EXPECT it to keep them

But a lot of what is grown is Mexican Morning Glory, Impomoea tricolor whose wild form comes in three colors (white, blue and pink). When left to re-breed freely, that one often reverts to it's wild colors (with white being by far the commonest)

What I grew is probably Japanese Morning Glory Impomoea nil. Whether mine are wild type or not I have no idea, but what I got was blue, pink, dark pink, purple, and at least one that was functionally black.
 

flowerbug

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Yes I have sandy soil. My guess though is that in Michigan you have much colder temps.in the winter making the seed unviable. The seed does not come true..

we really have no trouble with the cold temperatures making the seeds unviable. the seeds that sprout in the pathways and in the various gardens are not deep in the ground and we do get quite cold winters.
 

flowerbug

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Isn't that a shade plant? I'd love some, but almost all of the drive/ditch line is full sun. The only shade it gets if from the overhead power line.

morning glories a shade plant? they will grow here in some spots that are shaded but by far they grow the best where we have full sun. i suspect some of your sprouting problems in that area may be the regular flooding. nowhere we grow them do they show up when it gets flooded. they're in the pathway (which gets wet from rains but otherwise doesn't get too wet very often at all) or along the fence line where they've grown before and dropped seeds. which stays moist from the wood chips and gaps that have a bit of dirt in there, but the other spot where we have them is fairly solid and mostly clay which doesn't flood any more very often (since i put in drainage back there).

i don't notice them sprouting in the low spots around that area, but up in the middle where we used to have them growing on old bed frames in full sun they've been coming back for years from the seeds left over. i'm not sure how many more years they'll be showing up.
 

flowerbug

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The answer seems to rely on the fact there is MORE THAN ONE species in the mix. The common Morning glory is Impomoea purpurea which, as it's name suggests has purple flowers naturally, so one would EXPECT it to keep them

But a lot of what is grown is Mexican Morning Glory, Impomoea tricolor whose wild form comes in three colors (white, blue and pink). When left to re-breed freely, that one often reverts to it's wild colors (with white being by far the commonest)

What I grew is probably Japanese Morning Glory Impomoea nil. Whether mine are wild type or not I have no idea, but what I got was blue, pink, dark pink, purple, and at least one that was functionally black.

if i had somewhere a mix like that would be suitable i'd love it. sadly, i'm just not going to be planting any more of these if i can help it...
 

Nyboy

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The answer seems to rely on the fact there is MORE THAN ONE species in the mix. The common Morning glory is Impomoea purpurea which, as it's name suggests has purple flowers naturally, so one would EXPECT it to keep them

But a lot of what is grown is Mexican Morning Glory, Impomoea tricolor whose wild form comes in three colors (white, blue and pink). When left to re-breed freely, that one often reverts to it's wild colors (with white being by far the commonest)

What I grew is probably Japanese Morning Glory Impomoea nil. Whether mine are wild type or not I have no idea, but what I got was blue, pink, dark pink, purple, and at least one that was functionally black.
Wow a black Morning Glory !!!!!!!!!!
 

Pulsegleaner

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Well, Blackish Purple.

Promblem (for anyone who was about to request seed) is that the vines got so entangled I gave up on trying to match flower to vine, and just put all the seed in one container. I think I got all there was, but which seed is the black one (or indeed if the black one ever made seed) I have no idea.
 

beeper

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They have come up in two places in my big rose garden at work, grrrrrr. I pull and I pull, and I spray roundup, they will not die.....Not my favorite plant at all.
 
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