Moonvines

[roseycheeks]

I am not sure if this is the right forum for these or not, but I have a question, does anyone know if this plant in this picture can have a bloom as small as it is? I gave a friend of mine one that I planted at the same time as this one and he has a bud on it already. Can someone give me some advice, it is in the picture window and seems to love the sun when it comes in the morning.

[rainbowgardener]

Pretty unlikely. I grow moonflower every year. Planted outside it grows and grows and does not put out any flowers until well in to summer. Could the bud be just a leaf bud?

[roseycheeks]

The bud was not a leaf bud, it was a flower bud, he said he used water and coffee grounds and it bloomed yesterday at about 4 oclock, it was the size of a softball, white and beautiful, it was also one of the ones that I gave him, is coffee grounds good for moonvines and other potted plants? I got some from my workplace and would like to know if it would do any good on any of them. My mg are also doing good, I think if the weather stays warm I will try to transplant the mg by the trellis so they can climb.

[rainbowgardener]

Never seen a moonflower bloom so early, but very nice!

Used coffee grounds are a good source of nitrogen which helps plants grow. It is not usually what they need to encourage blooming.

Commercial fertilizers have NPK values, which is nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. The bloom booster type fertilizers have formulations like 5 -15- 5. Feeding blooming plants just nitrogen tends to encourage lots of big leafy growth, at the expense of flowering. Fortunately the coffee grounds are not a real concentrated N source compared to commercial fertilizers.

[roseycheeks]

The neighbor that I gave one of the moonvine seedling to gave it back to me, the leaves have fallen off, I have no idea why unless she did not water it enough. Because when she gave it to me it is still green but the soil was dry, so I watered it good and put it under the flourescent lamp, hopefully I can save it. Here is a picture of it.

[rainbowgardener]

Is that the same one that bloomed already? Bloomed and then died? That can happen sometimes, when a plant is very stressed and perhaps dying it puts out a bloom in a desperate attempt to pass its genes along.

In any case, it does not look like there is much left to save.

[roseycheeks]

No, this one never bloomed, so do you think I should throw it away? I was trying to save it but if you think there is no chance it will come out of it I will toss it.

[rainbowgardener]

Well, it's hard to say absolutely for sure, but I think there's next to no chance it will do anything but die. And if it does struggle along to put out a little bit of new growth, it will be stunted and vulnerable for a long time.