saving the morning glory seeds

I've just been clearing away the last of last year's Morning Glory Seeds. Over the last five years, my self-seeded plants have mostly reverted to a compact hot pink variety (though last year I had two or three delicate, tiny, baby-pink, deeply frilled flowers - let's hope they come back), quite a long way from where they started - which was with the classic Heavenly Blue, a Carnivale mix and Grandpa Ott's.

Heavenly Blue never seems to come back at all, but the occasional flower comes up Gramps, which is an old variety, one of the ones which inspired Seed Savers, the biodiversity preservation seed bankers in the US. In the UK, the Heritage Seed Library does a similar job - veg focussed, holding onto the old varieties. There are some seed swaps close to me (I just missed one at Barracks Lane Community Gardens) but this year (every year!) I have more seeds than I have space or time to plant them; even having knocked half the morning glory seeds down into cracks where they can grow themselves (semi self-seeding?) I'll still have far more than I need.





That's Grandpa Ott's. top left. Heavenly Blue in a steamed up greenhouse, and a Carnivale flower, bottom left, growing up my Tatlin Tower frame. On the right is the cheerful pink variety which has emerged victorious from this mix of flowers, and which this year I am sure will be growing all over everything once again.