Morning Glories: Plant Care & Growing Guide

These flowers are a classic choice for any garden as they are easy to grow.  They make a great addition to any flower garden.  

Even if you are just getting started with your flower garden, these will not disappoint you.

Morning Glories Care & Growing Guide

1. What Morning Glories Looks Like

In this plant family, there are over 1000 varieties and they belong to the same family as sweet potatoes.  The main difference is that morning glories do not produce edible tubers.  The most common colors are shades of white, purple, blue, and pink. 

Their blooms unfurl in the sun with romantic tendrils that give the plant an old-fashion charm.  They are often the first flowering vines that most people become familiar with.

2. Light

Morning glories need the sun because they will only open if the sun shines on them.  They can tolerate very light shade but prefer full sunlight.

3. Water

With morning glories, you need to provide about an inch of water per week along with mulching around the roots so they maintain their moisture.   You want to make sure that you are keeping the soil moist until you see the seeds sprouting.  Morning glories should be watered once a week during the summer unless you are having a dry spell.  If this happens, watch your plants and add extra watering as needed.

4. Climate

Hardiness zones of 3 through 10

5. Soil

The soil should be neutral and have a pH of 6.0 to 6.8 but morning glories have been known to bloom just about anywhere.  They will bloom better in soil that is not to rich with organic matter. 

The soil needs to be well-draining.  When fertilizing morning glories go easy and give them low nitrogen fertilizer every four to five weeks. If you give the morning glories too much nitrogen it causes them to overproduce and result in fewer flowers.

6. Temperature

If you are growing morning glories indoors, you need to keep them near a south-facing window or if you live in the Southern Hemisphere it would be a north-facing window.  You need the soil temperature to be 68-86 degrees Fahrenheit.

7. Speed of Growth

The morning glories are generally fast-growing annual vines but some have the tendency to hold off flowering until the fall.  Most will start blooming by mid-summer.

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8. Height and Spread

At maturity, they can reach heights of five to fifteen feet or higher.  If you are planting seeds, spread them six to eight inches apart so the vines can grow as far as they can.  Their actual spread at maturity varies since the vines spread.

9. Potting

Morning glories are usually outdoor plants so they normally do not need to be repotted.  You can grow them indoors but in order to do so, you need to have warm temperatures and full sun.   If you are repotting them inside in a pot, it will take four to seven days to germinate. 

They also will need a trellis for them to cling to and grow along.  Make sure that before you plant the seeds that it is where you want them to grow because they act poorly to transplanting or repotting.  This is due to their delicate root systems.  Indoors you need to have a three-inch peat pot.  If you decide to move it outdoors, you can just bury the peat pot without disturbing its root system.

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10. Propagation

You can take the softwood cuttings and root them in the spring and summer and in the fall you can harvest the mature seeds.  Morning glories are self-seeding so they can start new plants on their own without propagation.

11. Trimming

They are very low maintenance so you do not need to deadhead or prune them.  If you do not want them to self-seed then you need to remove all the old flowers before they form seed pots.

Is the Morning Glory Plant Poisonous?

The seeds of the morning glory are poisonous so keep them out of the reach of children and pets.

Also read: Winter Rose Poinsettia: Plant Care & Growing Guide

Flowers and Leaves

• Flowers:  They are trumpet-shaped with buds that twirl uptight and when the sun hits them in the morning, they unfurl.  The colors are mentioned earlier in the article but they can also have some bi-color morning glories.
• Leaves:  The leaves are heart-shaped and bright green on the vine.  There are slender tendrils that cling to supports like walls and fences.

Common Morning Glory Plant Diseases

These vines are seldom bothered by diseases or insects but they can contact different fungal problems like leaf spot, or thread blight in wet weather. The vines can have these aphids, spider mites, caterpillars, and leaf miner on the vines.

 The biggest problems that morning glories have are with four-footed animals as they like to munch on their leave.  The lower vines can become meals for groundhogs, deer, and rabbits.  You can help with this problem by putting fencing around the lower three to five feet where the vines are growing.  In time, the vines would grow through the fencing but if the animals nibble on it at this time it will not kiss the entire plant as it could before.

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Conclusion

The morning glories bright flowers have a slight fragrance.  They are popular with hummingbirds and butterflies.  They grow by clinging with tendrils.  You can save the seeds so you can replant them next year but they do readily self-seed so it may not be necessary to plant the seeds. 

When you are ready to plant morning glories seeds, you need to do it in the late spring or early summer.  The ground needs to be about 64 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Morning glories are beautiful climbing vine plants and though they can be grown inside, they do much better outdoor.  They do like to climb but can be used as a ground cover.  The only real pests you have to watch out for are the four-legged animals like deer.  Morning glories are easy to grow as they are self-seeders but at times you can find morning glories where you did not want them to go.

Keep reading:

• Macho Fern Care & Growing Guide
• Mexican Heather: Plant Care & Growing Guide
• How to Transplant & Move an Azalea Bush