The end of the Morning Glory/Moonflower Vines

Well November 1st was indeed our first official frost of the year.  I say official in that it pretty much killed my morning glory and moon flower vines. 

Just look:

This was the vine just 8 days prior.  So alive and green and strangly enough still flowering.  Well the Morning Glories were.  The Moon Flowers haven't opened in a while now.

I am so sad to see it go but it did give me lots and lots of flowers....and over 200 seeds so far.  Today the vine looked even worse than the first to pictures so I cut it down.  It was too depressing to look at.  But as there where tons more seed pods still on the vine I saved the ones that were fully developed just waiting to dry.  Should be interesting to see what pods trully did have full seeds and the ones that didn't.  I did how ever find 3 more Moon Flower seed Pods.  Not sure if they were done or not but as the vine was dead...or very close they too were cut off.  I saved the Pods that looked like they may have seeds in them.  But like the Morning Glory pods we will just have to wait and see what we get.

Collecting Seeds

On a nice fall day you head outside and take a walk.  As you pass a neighbors yard you see that once beautiful garden laying dormant and wish you had some of their flowers.  Well since it is fall most likely there are seeds that you can gather. 

Besides the colors of the trees fall is a great time of year.  Although your garden seems to be sleeping it isn't.  The last stage before that long winter nap is happening.....the setting of seeds.  Some may have already produced and released their bounty but many are still holding on to their treasure.

Collecting seeds can be fun and educational.  Learning what each plants seed pod or seed looks like.  Discovering that there are many sizes, shapes, and colors to seeds and seed pods. 

 Here is a good example of how different seeds can be.  The 2 black seeds are Morning Glory seeds.  The 2 big white ones are Moon Flower.  Both plants seem very simular in nature as they are both climbing vines and the leaves are virtualy the same.  But the flowers and seed pods are very different.

Here in these two pictures are both seed pods for Morning Glories.  They look very different though.  Both plants are indeed Morning Glories but in this case the seed pod shape and size are clues at to the variety.  The first is from my Heavenly Blue.  Large blue blooms. 

The second is from a vine on a neighbors fence. These blooms were significantly smaller in size as well as different colors.   The pods weren't the only difference either.  To gather these seeds I just simply had to touch the pods and they broke open.  Where my Heavenly Blue pods required a little more work...not much but a little. 

This pod here is from the Moon Flower vine.  Like the seeds a lot bigger than the Morning Glory.  These also take much longer to fully develope.  And are not as plentiful as Morning Glory.  Mostlikely because the amount of pollinating insects at night is far less than during the day...so not as many of the blooms will become seed pods.

 
Here is a close up of the 2 different Morning Glory seeds.  On the left you can see 3 larger and more oval like shapped...these are the Heavenly Blue.  The others are the ones from the fence.  The mini blooms.

This funny looking thing is a seed pod for a Mimosa Tree.  For these you have to make sure that they are brown not green.  Green is still growing. 

And here you can see what the seeds inside look like.  Although these all came from the same seed pod they are all different.  The basic shape is the same but size isn't.  If you were to open a green pod you would see that most are all the same size.  It is during the drying stage that they shrink...some more than others.

The Rose of Sharon seed pods are very different in many ways.  Although for the most part the seeds with in are the same from variety to variety unlinke the Morning Glory ones sometimes the pods will differ.  In size for one but also in time to maturity and ammount of seeds. 

These Rose of Sharon seeds all came from one pod.  But the next pod I opened had 2 seeds.  very different in numbers but both looked very much the same.  The hair you see is called wings.  It's how they get around when the pod is fully open. Carried by the wind.

I went to a few different sites to find out what to look for in terms of seed pods that are ready and that aren't.  What the seeds look like, and how to go about germinating them.  The following sites are really good to use to identify mystery seeds the kids may bring home http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/, and http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/seedid/ were 2 really good ones.  I used them to find out what this crazy looking seed was.  Turns out it is Clematis.

Flowers in the Garden Part 3

As fall keeps creaping in I feel the need to bring Spring to the blog.  So here is another instalment of 2010's flowers in the Garden.  This time we are moving to the side of the house .

The begin of Spring brought several beautiful Daffodils.

One of the Iris' that bloomed.  I love the coloring of these flowers.  The way that look like no other flowers.

The other version of Iris in the yard.  Also pretty in it's own right. 

The lilies that surprised me as well.  Since this was our first Spring in the house I didn't know what kind of beauty was lurking beneath the soil.  Gonna try to get a few other colors for next year.

Now these guys like the Irish have unique color patterns.  To me they look like they have frekles.  These guys are Rodadendrum

Here is a big of a close up of one of my other Rose of Sharon Shrubs.  This one is actually a double flower.  The center part for some opens just like the outer part and sometimes it just stays lacy like this one.  This shrub was covered in blooms this year.  And I am collecting seeds....

 And here we are to my pride and joy.  My morning glories.  This one is called Heavenly Blue.   And let me tell you when they first open they are very blue.  This one has touches of purple in it because it was a few hours old.  If you look to the left of the open bloom you can see a purple one.  This one opened the day before and is shriviling up.  The blooms are only good for one day but if you have a good healthy plant you won't even realize that.  I had some many blooms some days it was crazy.  You can cut them and put in water although the open blooms will only last that day but if you cut the stem so that there are other blooms ready they will bloom in the water.  In fact I had cut back some of the main plant because it was taking over my railing and I droped a stem with buds on it.  Even with out water apparently these guys can still be hardy....4 days after I cut it a bloom opened. 

This little beauty is actually not very little.  This is a Moon Flower, called Giant White.  Like the Morning glories it is only good for one day.  Actually for one night.  Yup these guys open at night.  Most of the time.  Every so often  a few of them got confused and opened early evening but not often.  Compared to the Morning Glories they are quite large.  They do have another big difference though in that they do sometimes last almost a whole 24 hours.  Where Morning glories usually don't make it past 12 hours.

Both of these two are vining plants and can be very aggressive though so be prepared for that.