The magic of morning glories
These beautiful annual climbers grow vigorously to fill your garden with colour and delicate blooms
Just the name morning glory has an exotic air about it, conjuring dreams of sunny balconies in countries we’ve not been allowed to visit for so long. And some say that ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glory is the most beautiful flower we can grow. Such a penetrating blue is a rare colour and a fence covered in these astonishing flowers can be breathtaking.
But ‘Heavenly Blue’, with its broad, white-eyed azure flowers that open early every morning on twining stems, is just one of many beautiful morning glories, also known as ipomoea. And, it turns out, sweet potatoes are ipomoeas too, as are the sweet potato relatives grown in summer baskets for their richly coloured foliage.
The botanists have also decided that two other fine climbers are so closely related to morning glories that they also belong as ipomoeas. Red and cream Mina lobata (now Ipomoea lobata) may not look much like a morning glory but, from a botanist’s point of view, the two are very similar. The same goes for scarlet-flowered Quamoclit coccinea (now Ipomoea quamoclit). You’ll often now find them all together in the catalogues, listed under ‘ipomoea’.
From a gardener’s point of view, all are twining climbers and all raised as half-hardy annuals in the same way. Sow the seed in pots on the windowsill and they’ll soon be through and growing vigorously. For a flying start you can soak the seeds overnight before sowing. But remember that, although some are hardier than others, they hate frost. So don’t plant them out until all danger of frost has passed.
But those botanists keep us guessing as, while they’ve decided that two climbers that don’t look like morning glory should be known as ipomoea, hardy annual convolvulus, which to most of us looks exactly like an ipomoea, has retained the name of convolvulus. But, whatever the botanists say, we know what we like and we know what we like to grow. Take your pick!