Japanese Morning Glories

For all that grew the Japanesse Morning Glories this season.
I am wondering:

How well do you rate their preformance?

Witch were the best/worse?

What were your end results?

If anything, what changes will you make growing these next year?

......thanks.... :o)
Dee

Dee - I tried several.

Peformance - hmmmmmmmmmm, very slow to bloom this year for me. Cool and wet summer.

Blooms - usually quite large, tears easily

Best - hard to tell, but I did like Heian Izumi (crinkly lavender), another lavender one with white border and also Akatsuki No Beni.

Worst - very problematic to get seeds. The blooms are prone to tearing - very large and delicate.

End Results - Very frustrating and I love them.

Next year - plant earlier, label better and don't expect seeds.

I'm definitely buying more in January or February.

Thanks Sbarr, do you think you would have better results as far as seeds and blooms if your growing season was longer?
Where did you plant yours? Was it windy,sunny or in the shade more?.......thanks so much for the info....... :o)
Dee

Everything would bloom better if my season was longer and I started earlier. Because I knew I would be traveling the beginning of May, I didn't plant until mid-May, which didn't give me much time. Some, all sun, some half sun.

The ones that did best were:

1) Planted in the ground, not pots
2) All sunny location

I don't know whether it would make a difference as far as seeds go. While I felt very hopeful about collecting seeds, I'm much more skeptical right now - especially given my luck and reports from others from the co-op. Beautiful blooms, no seeds.

Maybe best not to count on seeds and make sure to get some fresh seeds imported each year - I'll definitely be ordering more in January or February in the next co-op. Maybe busybee or Twin Lakes Chef can offer some input - I believe they had several bloom.

One thing I am doing is cutting back my potted ones to a few inches to bring indoors for the winter. I have cut back a few and one has already rebloomed, so it is possible.

As far as seed success, these are probably carefully managed hybrids, maybe they're not as prolific seeders as some of the old favorites like Grandpa Otts (Which I don't even have to plant - it' reseeds itself perfectly).

I had a good germination rate and lots of blooms on most of them, would have to check pots for variety, but like sbarr, not many seeds. Sandra, glad to hear we will be getting more in 2004. :)

:-) Haven't ironed out the details yet (new catalogs aren't out in Japan and Lophophora had to tell me to cool my heels). BUT, he did say next year sounds positive for another co-op. Probably some of the challenges are going to be managing the demand - I had 25 people last year (each co-op) and I have seen interest from those groups, plus MANY more who are either new or missed the co-op. It's going to have to be limited again given the speculative nature of shipping them here, but we'll do our best. I'll probably post for interest in advance (announcing a date and time to sign up) so those who don't log in for a couple of days but are very interested don't miss out.