Moonflower

I have tried to grow this twice and both times it germinated and grew a few inches and then stayed there! Very frustrating -- I was trying to grow it up a tuteur on the other side from morning glories ... any idea what's going wrong?

Needs to be started indoors, needs a lot of sun and warmth. Here in zone 4 (I think) I never succeeded in having a flower. This year plants are just beggining to show some buds.

Maybe, from your description, they receive shade from you morning glories. They might also need more fertiliser than regular morning glories.

Good luck

Thanks -- if I bother to do them again next year I'll take both suggestions! So many plants, so little time ...

Mine where fine, but I started them indoors around March 10th and hardened them off before transplanting them. I hade purple and white flowered plants. You also have to get up early or look for the flower in the evening to see the flowers, they close up again. At least mine did.

I don't mean to encourage throwing in the trowel with the legendary moonflower (Ipomoea alba),

But!

there are many other flowers that flower by the moon, and one species that would give you long, rambling vines to walk under with many night-blooming, white, fringed, fragrant flowers that are a joy to look up to and view in sillouette against a twilight sky is the gourd species: Lagenaria siceraria.

This is not a coy flowerer like Ipomoea alba can be for some of us northerners - it covered 50' of yew hedge and romped up to the top of a magnolia from which eventually it dangled 6' long, narrow gourds sold to us by Pinetree as 'Cucuzzi carravazi'. In Hortus III, L. siceraria has a few different common names: Bottle gourd, Hercules gourd, Calabash, Dipper, among others. It is said to be edible if you can get to it when it's 6" to 9" long.

I gave all our seed to Momcat and a volunteer to Roadrunner. Perhaps they could share some seed...?

Here's a 19th Japanese woodcut of this plant, labeled:
Yoshitoshi_Genji_Yugao_no_maki
from: http://www.japaneseprints.net/gallery.cfm

The Tokugawa shogunate which had kept Japan stable for 300 years during its Edo period (approx. 1603 - 1867) fell during Yoshitoshi's lifetime shortly after Japan was opened up to Western commerce and civil war broke out. Yoshitoshi's art reflects very cruel times, so be prepared if you decide to check out his woodcuts on this website.

This woodcut is #5 from Yoshitoshi's series: 100 Aspects of the Moon

It's funny you should mention gourds -- I was thinking of trying one but they seem to take so much room -- I guess I could grow it along the fence? I have some nicotiana that smells great at night but now that we have a hot tub I want more stuff closer to the house that smells good ... I'll look into dipper gourds ... are those the ones you make bird houses out of?

Oh there's lots of fun gourds: birdhouse, dipper, snake, bushel, and on and on. I think all those listed are white, night blooming types and draw pretty moths. But they are indeed space hogs.

I to was frustrated with Moonflower vines. They did well, but not knowing to start them early, they started blooming in October. There's something special about them for me, so I'll probably try again.
Neal

I have a suggestion, do you make compost tea? I know whenever I get tired of waiting for my daturas to bloom, I give them a drink and about a wk. later I have blooms on the way. This works on a lot of flowers.
I didn't try this with my moon vine, had too many things in with it, some don't like to be fed. My moon vine didn't start blooming until late Sept. and I started mine in the house early, didn't even get any seeds, they want to form, but not getting hard? I will always grow these they smell so wonderful! Next year, I'll plant one by it's self and try the compost tea.

I seem to recall that Gumla might have grown it - if he's the one I remember, then he mentioned that if you harvest it at a young, small size, you can cook with it - he gives spices to cook it with in the recipe section.

Anyhoo, if he could get to the "gourds" when they were young and small, then he must have grown it differently than we - ours smothered a yew hedge as well as a tall magnolia. Would love to know his trellising technique.

But ours flowers on the tips of new-ish vines, for which much room was required - not sure how pruning would work.

Such a grand plant - Karen