The Japanese species are my favorites with their huge flowers and unusual shapes. I mostly prefer the Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’ because of the heavenly blue color of their blooms. This species has double-sized flowers, compared to the common species Ipomoea purpurea.
The first time I grew the ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories, I started them in April, by sowing the seeds I bought from the super store. I sowed several seeds, in different spots of my garden. I stuck a stick in each spot, so I would know that the morning glories that sprang out were the ‘Heavenly Blue’. That was necessary because my garden is full of morning glory seeds from the Ipomoea purpurea species and they sprout everywhere in the garden, like weeds!
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It wasn’t hard to recognize the Ipomoea tricolor sprouts because their leaves are different, more luscious, with a pointed tip and with less hairs than the Ipomoea purpurea species. The color of the leaves is also a lighter green than of the other species I mentioned so it was easy to recognize them. As soon as they sprouted, I cleaned the ground around them, so they can have a clear space to grow well and fast.
I started to water them thoroughly, yet I always forgot to water one vine that was growing in the back of my garden. I had great expectations for all those vines, which grew bushy and “dressed up” the whole fence, so beautiful! It was September and there were no flowers on any of the bushy vines, except for the poor one which I had always forgotten to water. It started to bloom long before the others did, which made me think that maybe I shouldn’t have watered the others so much. Finally, in September they all started to bloom, at first a few blooms and then, more and more, until the first frost came. I couldn’t collect any seeds, as they weren’t ripe before the frost killed the plants.
That spring I bought a beautiful pergola for my vines and I was very anxious to see them climbing on it. I sowed several seeds at the base of the pergola and 4 plants sprouted, one for each side. But guess what? On that particular summer, we had a severe drought and, since the vines were growing in the southern part of my garden, they didn’t get enough water and grew very bare compared to what I was expecting. However, they didn’t bloom earlier, which drew me to this conclusion: no matter the water or the bushiness, the Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’ always blooms in September.
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