I was looking forward to enjoying some ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glory blooms this year, but it never happened.
As you can see, the plants were very happy and filled out my trellis nicely. I think this was 6 plants.
When the plants DO bloom, the flowers are a gorgeous shade of sky blue:
The vines grow 8 to 10 feet tall in full sun or part-sun. Pollinators such as hummingbirds and bumblebees love the flowers.
When I’ve grown this species of morning glory in the past, I’ve given them a head start by sprouting them indoors. I didn’t realize that if direct-sowed them, they might not form flowers in time.
‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories are “short-day plants” which means that after they’ve reached growing maturity, they need a certain amount of unbroken darkness before they’ll bloom. My shorter growing season in Wisconsin makes that difficult. Of course we get much more darkness in the fall, but that’s also when the first frost is most likely to occur. That’s why it’s best to start these plants indoors ahead of time.
I could choose a different non-short-day morning glory cultivar, but some morning glories are vigorous self-seeders. I’m still pulling morning glories out of the flowerbed next to my porch, and I haven’t grown that cultivar for more than 15 years now!
‘Heavenly Blue’ is sterile, so it won’t self-seed.
Next spring I’ll try sowing some seeds indoors several weeks before spring planting time and see if I can make those lovely blue flowers appear once again.