I'm having problems with my morning glories this year and I don't know why or what I can do next year to keep this from happening. All my MGs are grown in containers and although in past years they start to lose their lower leaves, this year they look like total crap and on some trellises they haven't even covered the top like in past years. The new foliage looks small and frail whereas in past years they were still climbing and growing at this time of the year. They all seemed to have flowered nicely and on only one trellis they have done OK this year. In the following pics I'll step you through the situation and hopefully someone will have some insight as to what went wrong. I live in Zone 5 Chicago where we suffered a horrendous drought this year and it has been hot but I have been very diligent about keeping these things watered. Watering this garden has literally been an albatross around my neck requiring my attention every single day making me look forward to fall and winter but I digress. As much as I like to attribute the problem to the drought, and that's been my standard excuse this year for every garden problem :-), I'd like to know what could be the real cause of this since MGs have become a staple of my garden's foliage in August - October.
Note: All the following pics have been reduced to 100K or less in size and they were taken today which is kind of gloomy here.
Here is a pic of one trellis that has healthy flowering MGs:
Here is an example of a trellis with barren lower vines, vines that are far more barren this year than any year I've done this. Note in the lower part of the pic there are the three containers where the MGs are grown. One is a 5 gallon bucket and the two stainless steel ones are
14"x14"x14".This is a full view of that entire trellis today:
If you read this far here is my quandary: In the past I've grown MGs in these big square boxes or 5 gallon buckets. I wanted to see how small of a container I could use so I set up an experiment using a quasi- hydroponics technique. In the following pic you'll see a small 5" pot stuffed into a plastic cover of a 50 pack CD-R spindle.
Ironically, this MG vine has not succumbed to leaf loss and has maintained its health throughout the entire summer even though it is growing in such a small container. Here is a pic of the full vine: