Growing Morning glories inside

[ghostrider]

I thought I would try to grow some purple MG seeds inside, well they took off, now what I am worried about is there any way to keep them from taking over the house? My hubby is not going to be very happy with MG vines all over, is there any way to keep them alive and blooming but keep them short and bushy? I don't want to kill them but have no room for them to vine. I started them too soon but thought it would be nice to be able to walk over and smell the sweet smell of MG while it was cold and snowy outside! Know what I mean? So far the Amaryllis bulbs are not doing anything that I can see, I do have drainage holes in the containers, I only soaked the roots of one bulb and it did not look like any roots I had ever seen. But I just added some potting soil to the containers because it was not exactly 1/3 sticking out, it was more like 1/2. All the containers are in the windowsill and so is the MG. Patience is not one of my virtues I hate to say, when they were giving that one out, I think I was on vacation!!! Except for when the bulbs start to sprout, how can you tell if it is doing anything?

[CharlieBear]

How long ago did you plant the bulbs, on average most forced bulbs take about 10 days to start coming out of dormancy, so less, some more.
You can try shortening the vines, but that will make it much less likely that they will bloom properly, MG not usually grown inside.

[rainbowgardener]

Yup, when you asked the question about the morning glories a week or so ago, I said that you can keep cutting the vines back, which will keep them short and encourage some extra branching, but in that case they will be very unlikely to bloom. It is in the nature of morning glories to be a climbing vine. It is difficult to force plants to do something that is against their nature.

[ghostrider]

:( I guess I will try to kill it, I really did not want to do that, but I have more purple MG that I can plant in the spring, and I have quite a lot of MG seeds from mine too. I would plant it anyway, the cold weather would kill it and I can get another bulb and put it in the pot I had the MG in. My hubby would kill me, I have my own mini garden in the windowsill, 3 Amaryllis bulbs and a MG that is doing quite well. I guess that is why people don't start MG in the house till closer to spring. I planted the Amaryllis bulbs October26th, so if they start gowing ten days after, they will be sprouting around November 5th give or take a day here or there. :( Do you have any other suggestions to what I could do with it? The MG that is.

[applestar]

I didn't see your previous thread that rainbow gardener mentioned, but I'm really kind of skeptical that you could grow morning glories indoors in Ohio now as we are going into frosty weather.... Morning glories like warmth and sun/light, neither of which are easily provided this time of the year.

Vining aspect can be controlled by winding the vines around, planting in hanging pots, or otherwise fashioning string trellises around the window, etc. But other aspects?

Fortunately, those seeds are not expensive and easily obtained, and you can always experiment to see how much of their growing needs you can meet. You might also want to start seeds at various times through the winter to see when is the optimum time to start them. I confess, though, that I've never started them ahead in pots, but usualy plant the seeds directly in the ground outdoors around when I plant beans. I do start Moon Flowers (white night blooming relative) and Cardinal Flowers (red flowering tropical relative) about 4 weeks before last frost since they take a long time to begin to flower. But morning glories mature to blooming stage much earlier.

I don't know if that helped at all. Sorry.

[ghostrider]

I have been wanting to see if I could actually start anything and have it grow inside, my obvious choice was Morning Glories, when I started them I did not give enough thought to them wanting to twine around and get big, I forgot that you can't control their growth, mine are almost at the stage where they are going to try to find something to twine around or lay on the windowsill or whatever I have them on. I may keep them on the bookcase and let them trail down to the floor, but I don't know what I will do after then, wish me luck.

[applestar]

Good luck.

Some thoughts -- it's hard to shut me up once I get going

Cup hooks or screw eyes in the ceiling and butchers twine works quite well. but remember that area surrounding the window may get too cold even with double-glazed windows. Morning Glory foliage blackens at hint of frost.

For a fun winter experiment, try bush beans. depending on size of container, you will get some good results. They don't need insects to pollinate the flowers and will form beans on their own. They also manage with less sun -- just south facing window.

For a little more challenge and with supplemental daylight cfl bulb, you could try starting grape or cherry tomatoes from seeds now. I've had them starting to turn red around February.

My regular winter windowsill fun includes cutting generous pyramids of onion bottoms and snuggling them in soil. They grow green onions you can trim and use as garnish in salads and soups, omelets, baked potatoes. They can be planted out in the garden in spring.

[rainbowgardener]

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=227648#227648

I don't start anything until January, but that is partly because I worry about all the electricity all my projects use. I have lights on the basil, pepper, and a few other plants that came to winter indoors. I run the stove for making soup stock, essential oils, jellies, etc.

And then in seed starting season there's all those lights AND one or two heating pads which are on 24/7.

For someone who tries otherwise to conserve energy, it seems like when it comes to all the plant projects, anything goes.

[ghostrider]

well, I did not kill them, they are vining now, have them on a tall bookcase and they are going towards the light. I had them in the window for awhile but needed to get them higher so the vines could start to trail down instead of grow up. Wo says you can't train Morning Glories? I got easy instructions on how to make a hanging basket using the bowl I have them planted in, will let you know how it w[url=https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/pb102721.jpg/][img]https://img37.imageshack.us/img37/7081/pb102721.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Uploaded with [url=https://imageshack.us]ImageShack.us[/url]orks out.

[ghostrider]

Does anyone know how much Miracle-Gro to give my MG? They are vining right now and I was wondering if I should give them any or not. Any advice would be helpful.