moon flowers and angel trumpets

[materialeesta]

This is my first year gardening with moon flowers, well honestly it's my first year gardening in general. :P I have one angel trumpet plant and 3 moon flower vines - 2 from sprouts and one from seeds.

As a newbee to the garden, you bet I'm gonna have questions in this post! :D

So...

The angel trumpet is one of the most beautiful blooms I have ever seen in my life and the flowers are pretty big in size . It has been growing pretty sucessfully and pretty quickley. The only thing that is driving me NUTS is that it blooms when night falls and then the next day it just hangs till it eventually falls off and dies that day. I've been looking at a lot of photos of mature bushes and all the flowers seem to hang also. I'm thinking that the only reason mine fall so quick is because it is so young and there is not much for it to lean up on. But I'm not to sure. Maybe the blooms are just very short lived? In anycase, whatever the reason is, I ASSURE you that every trumpet's first bloom is very magnificant and I am happy to have it. It's a perennials so I'm very excited to see where the years take it.

AS FOR THE MOON FLOWER VINES ....... G R R R R R ! !

My moon flower vines are growning like CRAZY. I can hardly keep up with them. Now, I wouldn't mind the constant need to help them expand if they would produce flowers but I have not seen one single bloom! Any advice??? I'm growing a bit impatient. They are annuals so I'm hoping to get atleast one little bitsy flower out of it to satisfy the work before fall.

Well any advice would be much appreciated.

I don't have any off hand, but I'll for sure add some pictures soon of the Trumpet blooms.

<3 materialeesta

[Newt]

Hi Materialeesta,

When you say "angel trumpet" I'm thinking you are talking about Brugmansia.* Common names can be confusing as there can be several plants with the same common name.* I don't know where Roselle, USA is, but 'Brugs' are native to the Andes Mtns where the climate is not like any in the US.* This site has some interesting info about Brugs, their growing needs and the different flower forms.* At this first page scroll down to 'Brugmansia Flowers' and start reading from there.
http://www.abads.net/aboutbrugmansia...brugmansia.htm

Lots of Brug and Datura info here.
http://www.abads.net/abadssitemap.htm

I've not heard of growing moon flower from sprouts, but I'm thinking you are growing Ipomoea alba, an annual vine with white flowers that bloom at night for just one night each flower.* You don't say when you planted the seed, but these plants tend to start blooming in July.* Too much nitrogen from fertilizer and you'll get lots of vine and few flowers.* Have you been fertilizing them?

Newt