Re: Ipomea indica vine (Blue dawn flower)
>I second Lee's position. If this is the same morning glory vine, it
>is a bugger to control and to get rid of. I foolishly fell in love
>with its wonderful flowers about 5 years ago and planted it on the
>fence that surrounds my vegetable garden. It soon grew into all the
>raised beds, and every tree and shrub within 100 feet. It is
>virtulaly resistant to Round-up and I am still battling the stuff to
>get rid of it four years later.
Nan
>
>If this is the perennial morning glory I'm thinking of, I would
>avoid it at all cost. Yes, the deep violet blue color is striking,
>but at a house I used to rent in Pasadena, Calif., it had become the
>worst weed imaginable. It sends out these runner vines, both just
>under the soil surface and just above it that, for example rapidly
>travel along underneath the lawn grass where they aren't immediately
>visible, and they root at intervals along the way, so that even if
>you discover them and pull them out, at some point the vine breaks,
>but if a rooted section is unknowingly left behind, it will grow a
>complete new vine from that point. This vine also sent runners under
>the entire house (in the crawl space under the house) that then
>emerged at various points in front of the house from which it
>started growing up the walls of the house. One runner found a crack
>in the floorboard of a storage room and tried to grow in the weak
>light entering that room--inside!. Before I moved in, it had
>completely covered the tops of both the orange and lemon trees
>growing in the back yard as well as a neighbor's live oak, seriously
>weakening the trees by cutting off all the sunlight. It was even
>making an attempt to smother some banana plants as well. To me it
>seemed far worse than running bamboo mainly because it was much
>quicker in it's runner growth in every direction. I would never
>plant it in a climate that is mild enough that it doesn't kill the
>above-ground growth every winter.
>
>--Lee Poulsen
>
>>I would like to learn a little more about this perennial morning glory,
>>especially about how you may have used it in your Medit gardens -- up a
>>trellis, over a wall, groundcover, or scrambling up another plant? Also,
>>what kind of pruning/thinning do you do, if any at all? I understand that
>>the bloom time can be extremely long, with masses of the purple-blue flowers
>>well into autumn. If the plant becomes a bit too vigorous for ones space,
>>can it be successfully maintained to a smaller size, say 8-10 feet instead of
>>20?
>>
>>Thank you in advance for all responses! C. Carter, California, Z9
>
>--
>--Lee Poulsen
>Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10
>wlp@radar-sci.jpl.nasa.gov
--
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Nan Sterman
San Diego County California
Sunset zone 24, USDA hardiness zone 10b or 11
