Are these nesting bird houses or for ornament? One of the first things that came to mind was that the MG wouldn't be able to climb up a bare copper pole. Then I figured you could wrap simple copper wire around the pole, barber shop style, to give the vine something to hang on to. But THEN, I figured that along with the MG, snakes and squirrels would be able to get up those poles. Or is my mind just a little too busy today? Snakes are a primary predator of bird eggs and baby birds in my part of the country.

MG grows several feet in length, but you could plant more than one at the base of the pole.

Hey, you can't be too careful with bird nests, if these houses are not just ornamental. I did read somewhere snakes can get eggs out of birdhouses, but if you and your neighbors have never seen or heard of snakes in your area, it's probably not a concern.

Squirrels are another matter. I don't know if they'd bother eggs or baby birds, but they're always looking for birdseed. They might scare the babies.

Low-growing flowers might be best where birdhouses and feeders are concerned.

My problem with morning glories is that they will always sprout and grow vines, but never show the slightest sign of wanting to bloom. *sigh*

Morning glories do produce side shoots that want to climb, so each plant is indeed "several vines".

Last year I planted a single Heavenly Blue morning glory at the base of an ornamental arbor. It grew profusely, side-branched, and covered the arbor, but took a long time to set any buds. FINALLY by late July there were buds. Within a week or two, the arbor was a dazzling display of large pale blue flowers every morning. From mid-August till frost in October, that morning glory bloomed like crazy. I'd also planted a black-eyed Susan vine next to it, and it climbed and bloomed, but it was not noticeable next to its blue neighbor.

I hope you don't mind me jumping in here with a few more questions.

I'm also thinking of sowing some morning glories but have hesitated (and my dh has encouraged hesitation) because we've heard they can be awfully invasive. Now, our place is NOT very fertile - it's almost pure sand and I have to work very hard adding lots of compost and organic stuff to have any flowerbeds or veggies at all. So far invasiveness has not really been an issue. How aggressive are morning glories? Am I likely to wish I hadn't let them loose?

Also, given my soil situation and the fact that it is VERY hot and usually dry here in the summer, could anyone give me advice on how best to prepare the bed and then care for the morning glories in order to ensure plenty of flowers if I DO decide to go ahead with them?

Morning glories self-sow prolifically. However, the seedlings are easily spotted and uprooted so I simply become heartless when I see the baby volunteers in the springtime. I've also noticed that all offspring revert to a deep violet-blue color, so if you want the variety of reds and heavenly blues and star-patterns and whites, weed out all the volunteers and plant your own seeds every year.

I suppose you could put down some sort of barrier around the plant that would prevent most of the dropped seeds from germinating.

Morning glories wilt in hot dry conditions, so do give them a good dose of water in the morning if you're going to have a hot, cloudless, dry day.

I have not found them to be too particular about their soil, though I've no experience with gardening in sandy soil. I would offer the general recommendation of adding plenty of organic material to retain moisture and provide something for the roots to cling to. To boost blossom production, choose a fertilizer with a higher middle number in the NPK array (phosphorous, which promotes strong root growth and blossom development) than the first number (nitrogen, which promotes luxuriant foliage growth).

Thanks for the information! I use quite a lot of mulch to help hold some moisture in this ground (heaven knows it drains out the bottom fast enough!) so I seldom see reseeders unless I intentionally pull it back. Few seeds are determined enough to make their way through 4-5 inches of mulch.

Sounds like it wouldn't be too hard to stay on top of 'em. Besides, I love those dark violet blue ones!

I appreciate your explanation about the ferilizer, too. I'm guessing I can apply that in other situations as well.

I used to live near the beach and Morning Glories did fine in our sandy soil.

I've heard complaints about invasiveness, too, but my seedlings are all found right at the base of my arbor. Pretty easy to take care of thinning them out and letting some grow. There are varieties that will flower most of the day, rather than only in the morning. I think Star of Yelta might be one of them, but make sure you do some research on that.

And no, they won't make it up a slick metal pole. They need something to twine on.

When our daughter was 12 we gave her charge of a new flower bed. She decided what to plant, bought the plants, planted and cared for them. She did a beautiful job and it gave her something to do that summer.

One of the things she planted was Morning Glories on a fence. They were beautiful and the entire fence was a gorgeous shade of blue! The neighbors commented on them, people were known to drive more slowly as they admired them from the street, etc.

The next year I found Morning Glories absolutely EVERYWHERE. They were on the complete opposite side of our yard. We all became accustomed to pulling an unending supply of the volunteers in unending variety of locations.

My daughter graduated from college last year and I am still pulling MG's. I don't think I'll ever get rid of them.

i have tons of morning glory. They love our red clay soil here. The fastes way to kill them or make them look crappy is to put them in fertile dirt or feed them. They like the red clay soil. Go figure.

The volunteers that took over a large bed one year grew in dark, rich soil that was enriched annually. I'd originally planted them in the front edge, which was the ornamental border, next to sunflowers, which they climbed eagerly. The following year their children grew throughout the bed (not only next to where their parents had flowered) and created a dense jungle.

The one on my sister's arbor grew in a thin layer of topsoil spread over hard red clay.

I have some that have gone wild behind the house in a spot where I toss organic kitchen waste and they now clamber up a power-pole anchor cable. The soil there is rocky and thin, though now enhanced with the decaying vegetable matter I throw there.

I'd hazard a guess that they'll grow anywhere and are remarkably unpicky about their soil.

If Star of Yelta is anything like Grandpa Otts, be ready for a lifetime of weeding. Beautiful but aggressive.

The hybrids like Heavenly Blue do not self sow at all for me. I got some in trade once marked 'pinks and purples' that had smaller flowers earlier than the HB. I had volunteers the following year but nothing obnoxious.

There is a twining weed called Bindweed that has white flowers that look like morning glories. It is extremely agressive, difficult to get rid of, spreads under ground, and pops up anywhere it wants and kills shrubs by strangulation. Many people call it 'Morning Glory' (though it is no relation) and if they've never met the 'good' annual MGs would be very wary.

If you can attach a piece of fencing, maybe 6" wide, it would give the MGs something to twine around. I purchased one of those cheap arbors that looks basically like a ladder that someone bent in the middle. I bought a roll of green wire fence (about knee high) and cut a strip to weave between the rungs for the vines to crawl. You could simply tie a strip of fencing to the poles with fishing line.

I attached 6" strips to the posts of the privacy fence for my clamatis.

My neighbor took a section and wrapped it around a flagpole in her yard. Caution--you must insert some sort of spacers between the pole and the fence so the vines have room to wrap around the fence.

The role of fencing has been used for many other projects!

hoehum, thanks for telling me about the "twining weed called Bindweed that has white flowers that look like morning glories". My mother's garden was infested with this stuff. She always called them "Morning Glories", so I was surprised that anyone would plant this intentionally! In a seed exchange I received several varieties but was wondering. Now I won't be afraid to plant them. I received "Heavenly Blue" and something just called "Mixed MG".

mike48858, thanks for starting this thread! Helped me out too, as I know nothing about MG habits. Sounds like they twine in a similar way as do clematis or peas: tendrils that need something skinny to wrap around.

Bindweed IS a morning glory - a wild one. It has thick white roots that go down further than you would think possible and any little piece of root will start a new plant so Roudup is the way to eradicate that.
I've grown Heavenly Blues for years and never got a seedling. But the ones that were fertilized (because they were in the vegetable garden), produced no flowers at all.
Compost is OK but I would rule out fertilizer unless all you are looking for is leaves.

Just a note for the seed-savers out there; 'Heavenly Blue' in my experience comes true from the seed that it sets. The seeds are actually a different shape from those of other morning glories.

I made the mistake of planting them on our back deck 12 long years ago and every year there are more and more seedlings. They even come up underneath the deck where it's relatively dark and weave their way up through the cracks of the deck floor! I think they're evil. LOL

For "ownlady": Morning glories are supposed to bloom in the second half of the summer. Here, they bloom from late July to frost. It's simply the nature of the plant.