Morning Glory Research in My Garden. Want to Try It?


I have already learned one thing. I chose to try 'Star of Yelta', not because it said "early", but because the picture somewhat resembled 'Grandpa Ott's' which was originally brought to the U.S. from Bavaria and is named for Diane Whealy's grandpa who saved the seeds. They just might be the same variety. However, when I planted both last week after soaking them overnight, 'Grandpa Ott's' germinated in three days and 'Star of Yelta' is just beginning to show signs of life more than a week later. I guess they are not the same and will probably have a different number of days to blooming stage.

Starting annual vines indoors too early can be fraught with frustration if the weather doesn't cooperate. If spring is late and stays cold too long, you have to resort to pruning. The seedlings have very long internodes (the distance between leaves) making them hard to fit under lights with other newly started seedlings. Once the plants develop their true leaves and begin to vine, watch out!! In very short order a tray of seedlings can become a tangled jungle that defies untangling without damage to the tender new vines. I make it a practice to nip out the growing tip as soon as it is about a half inch past the first true leaves and again after each new leaf forms. This makes the seedlings bushier than normal for a vine, but keeps them from reaching out and grabbing their neighbors. It has the good effect of producing a vine with multiple growing tips that gets it off to a better start covering its allotted space in the garden than single tip plants. I would also recommend not feeding the seedlings until after they are set out to further control the early growth.

Would you like to take part in this garden research project? If you live close enough to Minneapolis, you can come to my program on Morning Glories at Bachman's, 6100 Lyndale Ave. So. at 10 am on Saturday, April 8 and take home one or more seedlings to try. I plan to ask recipients to keep notes on their performance and to grant me permission to photograph them in bloom. If you don't live close enough, plant some different varieties of your favorite garden plants (they don't have to be morning glories) and keep notes on their performance. How soon did they begin blooming? Which

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