by James Alexander-Sinclair
...As the name [morning glory] suggests, they have mostly faded away by lunchtime although, at this time of year, they last much longer.
Earlier this year my wisteria died: a tragic episode about which I wrote here (and here, actually, as well).
The most obvious upshot of this was the fact that we were then left with a big expanse of naked wall that needed covering, smartish. Rather than plant a rose or another wisteria - there might be some unpleasantness hiding in the soil - I decided to stick with annual climbers. We usually have morning glories (Ipomoea species) in pots, so I moved one of them to fill in and it did an admirable job with crowds of flowers to greet us each morning. As the name suggests, the flowers usually fade away by lunchtime although, at this time of year, they last much longer.
I also planted one directly in the ground against another wall just to see how it fared. The results were interesting. The pot-grown varieties (on an east-facing wall) flowered much earlier but, even though we fed them, ran out of steam quite quickly. They still flowered but the foliage now looks yellow and exhausted. The one in the ground (on a south-facing wall) didn't even think about flowering until late July, but the foliage still looks lush and green as we edge into autumn.
There may be a moral behind this story, but I'm dashed if I know what it is. It all depends whether you want early or late flowers, I suppose. Bees don't care either way and just want to get stuck in!
The other annual climber of which I am very fond is Cobea scandens. My wife and I have a competition each year to see who can grow the best specimen. This year hers is virtually hugging the roof of the house and has had about twenty flowers. Mine looks like a bedraggled hobo emerging from a rough night in a hedge and has had one flower.
I did, however, plant another one in my mother-in-law's greenhouse and that has grown so much that you can no longer close the vents. So I sort of win.
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