I used to grow morning glories in a small container along the side of my house but it wasn’t in a place that I could admire them from the windows that faced the backyard of my house, nor from my backyard deck. So I decided that one year I would seed some need the garden and a metal trellis I had welded in my welding class. I would soon learn more about morning glories than I cared to know.

Ipomoea purpurea, a.k.a. morning glory are beautiful flowers that come in a variety of colors – I choose President Tyler, a purple morning glory and pink morning glory which if it had a special name, I don’t recall what it is. The morning glories took hold quickly to the rich soil and new location their seeds were sown. Soon one side of the trellis was almost filled and it was a race between the morning glories and the hops which had been planted on the other side to see which would reach the center top first and who would overtake who. The morning glories decided the trellis wasn’t enough and started making their way for my vegetable garden beds. I found myself having to fight them off. What I forgot was that as a last minute whim I seeded some japanese pink morning glories on one side of my twelve foot raised beds to go up a trellis I had erected over there.

By mid summer the morning glories had declared victory having overtaken the 12’x 4′ raised bed I had been leaving fallow that season. President Tyler the decided victor but the pink japanese flowers put on a glorious show. Morning glory seeds are easy to collect and they drop their seeds all over the place which is why it keeps coming back year after year in my zone 6 garden.

I never planted morning glory seeds ever again and yet the President Tylers reappear every year. One even hitched a ride in one of our containers we had transferred up to our new place in New Hampshire. Somehow, it then jumped the container into the inground bed. The weather up here is different – colder, harsher winters and much windier but every summer for the last 3 summers a single purple morning glory grows. I’m fine with the one – although I know how pretty a huge wall of morning glories can look like given the right, light, soil and space.

I still love morning glories and would love to seed some more but considering how invasive I have seen it can be I am naturally hesitant. One thing for sure it will be nowhere near by vegetable garden!

This is my Floral Friday #12 and Flower of the Day