[Umbrian]

A friend gave me some seeds of Ipomea "Pearly Gates" for my birthday that I duly raised and planted at the back of a large pot that stands against the front wall of the house. The first flowers have been opening this week and on seeing the first one it struck me how similar they are to Calystegia sepium - known as Hedge bindweed and considered a pest when invading gardens - a familiar sight from childhood days when I used to help in my grandmother's garden and this plant colonised the wire netting enclosing the vegetable area. The flowers are a slightly more ivory white with an attractive pale yellow throat but it did strike me that we can be very fickle over what we regard as garden worthy and what not. I suppose the strangling habit of the bindweed (so aptly named) has something to do with it but if I remember correctly the flowers are quite beautiful.

[David Dickinson]

Hi Umbrian

How right you are. I remember my first time in Rome. We had a balcony with some plant troughs on and they were as dry as a bone. A couple of days after a violent thunderstorm "weeds" began to sprout in the troughs and one in particular caught our attention as it grew at a rate of about 6 inches a day. At least it seemed that way to us. And so we watered it and it grew and grew sending out a couple of side shoots which began to entwine around the railings of the balcony. After a couple of weeks we started to get beautiful, pale pink delicate cup-shaped flowers. Yes, a bindweed but it stayed with us all the way through to winter and gave us new flowers every day.

[Charithea]

Hi Carol and David,I like IPOMEAS!!  I have sown a lot of their seeds this Spring. One Ipomea rubra survived and I have two Ipomeas quamoclit with their beautiful lace like leaves thriving too. I am awaiting for them to flower. In the meantime I enjoy my Ipomea Heavely Blue. I bought the seeds in Derbyshire in April and bearing in mind the previous failures I had I put 3-4seeds in each pot. Success. I planted 4 of them in different positions where they can run amok. We have had 3 flowers up to date. Their color is as beautiful as the Cyprus Summer sky.

[Umbrian]

To my mind the flowers of Ipomea tricolor "Heavenly Blue" are the most beautiful of all but after buying a small plant of Ipomea coccinea last year I am in love with that plant too! I sowed seed from my plant and from two other sources - provided by a fellow Forumer. All germinated and grew away well but when I potted them on I suffered serious losses and now just have three plants remaining - two from one source and one from another. In the initial stages the plants seemed to differ slightly and I was interested to see how they progressed. The pair of seedlings grew away much more quickly and started to flower a week or so ago. The single seedling is still quite small and shows no signs of buds yet although healthy. This plant has very similar, finely cut leaves to the flowering plants but they are a much lighter green and slightly bigger. A shame all the plants from seed from my original plant succumbed but thanks to interaction on the Forum I am again enjoying this delightful Ipomea this summer.