Morning Glory

Variegated Morning Glory

Ipomoea purpurea

(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Ipomoea purpurea 'Grandpa Ott's'

(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

I have to admit the color of this flower is very enchanting to me. Truly a sight to see in the morning when the vine is covered with hundreds of flowers each reflecting the sun in their own way. It has seeded itself but not in a malicious way just enough to keep enjoying it year after year. Some control was used on the plants last year but that was more to keep the size in check. There is some wild Morning Glory in the garden some of which is allowed to grow, I have found it to be an onerous and formidable opponent and realize that we are just going to have to live with it.

Our wild and whacky weather continues. Lucky most everything bounced back from the freeze of a couple nights ago. We had a cold night last night but not freezing. When I got home from work on Wednesday I noticed my front and back yard was covered with something white. Turns out we had about an inch of gravel sized hail.  Have to add it’s supposed to snow tonight with a dusting by morning. What a roll coaster!

Morning Glory

Morning Glory ‘Heavenly Blue’

Ipomoea tricolor

(ip-oh-MEE-uh) (TRY-kull-lur)

Even though many people consider the Morning Glory vine to be a pest I think it is a great plant to have in the garden. This white one has grown from seed the last five years and has steadily become more and more beautiful. Its getting to the point where I may start pinching it a little more and remove a few of the seedlings.

The composition is a little different than most of my photographs. I have found the front of the morning glory flower to be difficult to photograph so I switched to the back. The gentle striping and luscious curves were enchanting.

This is a link to Today’sFlowers. I really hope it doesn’t throw the formatting off. Sunday means a bonus snapshot. This week it is a Wax Begonia.

Wax Begonia

Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum

(be-GON-yuh) (sem-per-FLOR-enz kul-TOR-um)

Synonym: Fibrous Rooted Begonia

Caudiciform Morning Glory
Ipomoea platensis
(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pla-TEN-sis)
Synonyms: Plata Ipomoea

This was a new flower for me. It was growing in a container and the vine part of the plant had grown to about 10 feet tall on its trellis. One of the interesting parts was its large and swollen caudex (the thickened persistent stem base of some herbaceous perennial plants). The way it had intertwined itself was amazing. This native of Argentina uses the water storage tissue in its caudex to survive extended droughts. The flowers were pretty with their two shades of pink and ruffled appearance. The foliage was nice too. You can see a little peeking in the side of the photo.

I have recently been struggling in how to write the story of the last member of the ‘Big Three’ that passed away last week. First I want to say that both of my dogs are okay. Both Ruby and Juno are doing fine. This is about someone else’s dog. During the 1990’s there was a lot of construction at the Estate. Not only were a lot of the gardens built then there was a lot of building construction at the same time. Almost everyday we would bring our dog, Molly, to work. There was also the caretaker’s dog, Garlic and the owner’s dog, Lily. These three dogs got along very well. They would often be hunting, digging (ugh) or just hanging out together. I don’t think I have ever seen dogs from different families enjoying each others company as much as these three did. We would often have Garlic and Lily over for sleepovers.



Molly (l) and Garlic
Photos courtesy of Conley Myers

Lily

It was one of those times in life when everything seemed to be just right and the three dogs just added to that. Molly would get so excited in the morning because she would know that she would be running around in with Garlic. All I had to say to her was “do you have your hard hat and lunch bucket?” and all hell would break loose. Three exceptional dogs, all gone now, that made a mark on my life and will never be forgotten.

Tall Morning Glory

Tall Morning Glory
Ipomoea purpurea 'Grandpa Ott's'

This is a nice Morning Glory. I was happy to see that the NYBG had a sign identifying the cultivar. It’s funny that a lot of people complain that their Morning Glories seed too much but I never seem to get any seedlings from mine and have to plant them every year.

Morning Glory is common name that encompasses 5 different genera and well over 1,000 species. It was first used in China for its medicinal purposes and later exported to Japan around 800 AD. It soon became a treasured ornamental.

Over the years we have grown some interesting types of Morning Glory from seed. It is generally easy to do. The vines like to grow in full sun and not too dry or too wet conditions. The soil doesn’t seem to matter and often times it will grow very well in lean soil.

Now I am off to shovel the snow we got last night. Only about 4 inches of the 10 forecasted fell so the job will be easier. There are a lot of below zero (F) temperatures forecast for the upcoming week. That hasn’t happened here in several years. Maybe I shouldn't have planted those Crepe Myrtles last summer :lol:

Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine

Ornamental Sweet Potato
Ipomoea batatas 'Margarita'
Synonyms: Sweet Potato Vine, Marguerite
(ip-oh-MEE-a) (bat-TAT-as)

This plant is a good one for containers. It has been getting overused a little now and it has popping everywhere. From my experience it is an excellent container plant for Connecticut. This is the first year that I noticed it used a lot as a bedding plant. You can see from the bottom photo that it works quite well. They planted some black leaved Sweet Potato Vine as well but that didn’t get as big. The close up picture is from the big patch in the second photo.


I have really been trying some foliage shots this year and not just fall color. If you catch the light right a foliage picture can be as beautiful as a flower picture. There might be a foliage week during the winter on this site. I could probably get together enough pictures that were taken over the year to do that.

Growing Sweet Potato is generally easy although there seems to be a few insects that like it. The darker leaved ones don’t seem to take as much care to look good as the lighter ones. My guess is that there will be more and more cultivars coming out.

This is a picture of one of the Chrysanthemums we got for the Estate this year. It was really beautiful and most fragrant I have ever smelled. A really fresh flower smell not like regular mums. This is just one of the dozens of mums I took pictures of this fall. There are some extra pictures so there will be a few more mums here soon.

Moon Vine

Moon Vine
Ipomoea alba
Synonyms: Moonflower, Giant White Moonflower, Calonyction

This is the third year in a row that the Moon Flowers have been done well in containers for us. I rarely get to see them because they are planted at work and it is a night blooming plant but I can tell they have been blooming by seeing all the spent flowers. Maybe I should grow one at home next year. Sometimes if it is a really dark and overcast sky there will be a few flowers open the morning. It is a classy looking vine during the day with big heart shaped leaves. The flowers sure are beautiful and wonderfully fragrant.

This was shot with my 60mm Nikon macro lens at 1/320 at F9. Not sure why it came out with the black background since it was in bright sun in the middle of the day. I am trying to figure it out so that I can try to do it with other flowers. The camera was set to minus 2/3 exposure compensation and was in the Aperture Priority Mode.