I love Morning Glories. Our local parks (we're located in Silicon Valley) have them trained up fences and they seem to be perennial. However, I have grown some and they have now died off. I would like to have a permanent growth of them on a trellis.
Are there particular varieties that are perennial?
TIA
Bernard Golden
I wish you lived up the road from me in GA, so I could just throw some vines in your direction. You wouldn't have to plant them, just stay out of the way so you didn't get tangled in them.
Tom J who hates morning glory as much as trumpet vine, but not as much as kudzu
Kudzu is a beautiful plant :) as long as someone else has to deal with it. I remember seeing it covering telephone poles and wires for miles when we would go visit relatives near Chatanooga. Just thinking of all the bugs living in it creeps me out :)
We have a wild morning glory type wildflower here called bindweed. Lovely small pinkish purple flowers.
I would rather deal with trumpet vine than wisteria, creeping fig (like every house around here has on the walls) or english ivy when it has found a comfortable spot.
Shell
I absolutely set my foot down and wouldn't allow wisteria anywhere near my property, even with wifey saying "but it's so beautiful in the spring". I really just don't like VINES, also including passion plant (May Pop), ivy of any kind from poison oak, poison ivy to English ivy, jasmine etc
After 20 years I think I have the morning glory down to about a 10' area, the English ivy and poison ivy both are still sprouting up over the entire place and the trumpet vine was still trying to put up new runners over about 20' this past year. The only thing I have managed to completely eradicate is the may pop and jasmine.
Tom J
Yes, and I have it. I don't know the botanical name, but it is perennial. It is not evergreen, but it comes back every year. I can send you some if you pay postage. It flowers spring through frost a beautiful, large, blue bell.
I also love morning glories. In many temperate zones they are banned as invasive because they don't die back. In my zone 5 they act as an annual.
Only certain species of morning glory are invasive, primarily those referred to as bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis and Calystegia sepium, and are widely naturalized throughout most of North America. Most of the others are tropical in origin and act as annuals and are very well-behaved garden vines. A few are more perennial but only in warmer zones.
There is such a hue and cry about invasives these days (and rightly so, in many situations) but it is important not to tar all plants with the same brush. Common names are extremely misleading, as many plants with widely different habits can be included under the same common name. And not all invasives will act the same in different climates and locations - invasives are VERY regional in nature and it is important to make that note when referring to them.
okay, off my soap box now :-))
pam - gardengal
The roots were running all through my garden and sending up new runners everywhere, just like every other vine plant does here where I live in GA
Tom J
That's what the nursery told my wife about the trumpet vine she brought home, that it was not invasive in our location and would stay put. NOT!! I don't do vines of any name, horticultural or otherwise, anymore
Tom J north of Atlanta GA and still trying to eradicate that vine after 5 years
Tom, there is a world of difference between "aggressive" and "invasive". An invasive plant is typically an exotic that has naturalized itself to the extent that it will out-compete native species for space, moisture and nutrients and generally one that will self-seed with abandon. An aggressive plant is one that exhibits thuggish behavior - spreading rampantly throughout the garden or in the case of the trumpet vine, sending up shoots at considerable distance from the mother plant - but typically does not self-seed prolifically or spread outside the garden to native areas.
FWIW, there are many vines that are extremely well-behaved garden inhabitants - clematis probably top the list, but even some of those can be invasive AND aggressive as well IN THE PROPER SITUATION. It is merely a matter of choosing the correct plant for the correct situation and knowing its habits. And I have been attempting to rid my garden of trumpet vine for several years as well. While my resident hummer loved it, I did not appreciate it popping up wherever it felt like, even through the pavers of my patio!
pam - gardengal
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