A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 I really need help!!!!!!

I have some morning glorys in a pot on my windowsill, i dont know if they will survive??? does anyone?? can they be grown indoors? how much do they need the sun?? will they still die back in winter if they are indoors?? please help...

Hi, the only morning glorys I know are annual vines. Is there another name for the plant you have? If it IS a morning glory vine, you can collect the seeds and sow them next year. They will spread. They are slow to get started, so patience is a virtue. Let me know if there is another name for your plant. Hope that helped a little.
Mom

That was some help yes, and yes, they are morning glory "Heavenly blue", but i need to know if they can grown indoors over winter, i dont want them dying because they are only small.....

I've managed to keep a morning glory alive for part of the winter, but as was mentioned, they are annuals, and tend to want as many hours of sunlight as they can get.

To give it the best shot possible, pot it carefully in a nice, large pot (at least 8 inches tall and just as wide), keep it moist , give it a good, tall stake to climb and put it in the very sunniest position available. The blooms probably won't be as large as they might have been if it had grown outside, but you ought to see some. Outside they can grow to ten feet or so. Inside, they may get to three feet tall.

thank you,

I'd separate the seedlings into maybe 2 or 3 per pot. If they flower you'd probably have to hand-pollinate to ensure that they set seed.

I've never hand-pollinated anything, though. Does anyone have any experience with this? (We may have to start a new topic on hand-pollinating.)

About pollinating morning glories: Usually the bees would do the job, but you can easily pollinate them yourself. What I do is to take a thin paintbrush (or something like that) and stick it deep into the throat of the flower. That's where the pollen (on the stamens, the male parts of the flower) is located. There should be a yellowish "dust" on the brush, in which you dab at the female part (the pistil). The pistil is usually longer (and larger) than the stamens and sometimes has a sticky surface. Make sure you get some pollen on there.

If it's pollinated correctly, the old petals will fall off leaving a "green knob". Then the "knob" will get swollen in time and increase in size. When it changes to a brown, crisp color, you can peel the skin apart and inside would be several morning glory seeds. It's a great way to increase your plants

Wow, thanks, lily!

When doing this, do we need to pollenate from one morning glory plant's pistil to a different morning glory plant's stamen?

Hi!

Not necessary. You can just pollinate on one flower, which is easier and simpler. It works!

Or, if you want to go further, you can try to create some new types by using two different colored flowers. Say, for example, you put pollen from a pink flower to a white flower...guess what'll happen? I haven't tried this with mg's yet, but with other annuals this has given me interesting color combos.

Happy growing!