I have tried but I am not a very kind hearted gardener. I have got them to sprout, and grow for a year and then it died. I think they like a but more acid, or so I read somewhere. And they like a sandy mis of fast drainage. I think I cut it off of H20 before it was established. I have never seen it in the nurseries, but was thinking o
if growing it again. I sprouted some last fall and then it died in the one hard frost that we had. I am thinking of ordering more seeds. I am outside of Dripping Springs, that 's a high alkalinity. So I am adding some soil sulfhur and sand this time.

Where did you find the plant/seeds Wantonamara? I'm in Bastrop, so my soil is sandy and acidic. Might be fun to try!

I've grown it successfully in San Antonio. It gets to be a beautiful, but quite a large plant -- about 8 foot tall and 5 ft. wide. There are white and purple varieties. It persisted for several years, but died in a particularly hard winter about 10 or 12 years ago.

I saw some plants offered at a Farmer's Market last year, but don't have room for it anymore. I'll bet someone on the forum will have seeds to offer.

Sorry for miss leading you, I think we are talking about 2 different plants. I am talking about the native plains plant that stays fairly low in the tall plains grasses of the desert /highplains area. . Ipomoea leptophylla. It would sail through a hard Texas winter, maybe not a hard PanHandle winter. I got seed from Plants of the Southwest. There is a semi tropical maybe they call it a bush morning glory also. I think that is the one that you are talking about. I mixed up my latin names. I think I saw thes seeds on Ebay for the tall growing one .

Here is a link that might be useful: Bush Morning Glory, Ipomoea leptophylla

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes peeled. :)

The native bush morning glory, I. leptophylla is plenty hardy, even for the panhandle. I've seen it growing wild in zone 5, Denver, CO.

Here in NM it grows in shortgrass prairie as well as semi-desert sandy roadsides, and can get pretty big (maybe 3-4 feet tall and 5-6 feet wide). I can't imagine it has any difficulty with alkalinity, since that's mostly what we have here too. I've tried starting it from seed with no luck (it seems very sensitive to rot), and have put off buying the puny 1-gallon plants from Plants of the Southwest, partly because I'm still unsure if it can take my heavy clay soil, as it is sand-adapted.

It started from seed easily for me but then it was fall and it died in the winter in the small pot. I think starting the seed now is good. but with some cold stratification maybe. As I said, no more seed.

I have had good luck starting the seed of I. leptophylla purchased from Plants of the Southwest, once the soil and air is completely warm (okra/black-eyed pea conditions). However, it soon (in a year or two) dies out for me in my moderately heavy loam over caliche. From my experience of seeing the plant in the wild in the Panhandle-Plains country of Texas, it doesn't require deep sand, but certainly a well-drained sandy loam. Some of the best plants I've seen are in a deep, highly alkaline fine sandy loam in association with Alkali Sacaton grass at Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge in the southwestern Texas Panhandle.

Wow, plainsman50, thanks for the details. By the way, has anyone ever tried transplanting it and/or taking root cuttings of it? The Plants of the Southwest catalog states that it does not like root disturbance and does not like being transplanted, but another source says it can be propagated from root cuttings. I just wonder if either of these methods would give stronger plants more quickly.

My girlfriend sent me a root cutting and it grew but then I forgot to water it to establish it..oops. I get too many plants going and I kill more than I like to admit.