The Morning Glory Flowers Project

I documented this project for those who are, like i was in late summer 2009, considering planting Morning Glory flowers, and are curious about what to expect. When I first planed the Morning Glory Flowers, I had never grown anything, and I had spent many hours on the internet searching for information about Morning Glory flowers.

I planted the Morning Glories not because I was that interested in growing flowers, but because I wanted to create a time-lapse movie with my Nikon D40 digital SLR camera and my newly purchased Apple MacBook Pro. I had already experimented with creating cloud time lapses, and I thought that flowers might be a more stationary and predictible object to focus on next.

I had read that Morning Glory flowers opened with the sunrise in the morning and then closed after having bloomed. I got the idea to plant the Morning Glories rather late in the summer, and I was not sure if it was too late in the season for them to bloom, but I decided to give it a try.

I bought my morning glory seed from Amazon.com, and I actually purchased three kinds: 10 Picotee Blue Morning Glory seeds, 10 Sunrise Serenade seeds and 10 Rare Kniolas Black Night seeds. The Sunrise Serenade and Rare Kniolas Black Night seeds came in small clear plastic bags, and the Picotee Blue seeds came in a regular seed packet. I also received some general information and tips for seed germination.

The tips for seed germination stated that, because Morning Glory are hard seeds, it is helpful to nick the seeds and also let them soak in water for at least 24 hours. I nicked the Sunrise Serenade and Rare Kniolas Black Night seeds and let them soak in water for 24 hours. The instructions on the Picotee Blue pouch did not emphasize the nicking as much, so I only soaked them in the water for 24 hours.

After 24 hours had passed, I planted all of the seeds one half inch below the soil in various places around the yard, but I mainly planted the Picotee Blue seeds in the planter shown above. I made that decision because I didn’t nick those seeds and I thought what I considered to be the “regular” seeds should get what I thought would be the best dirt.

Over the next few days, mostly all of the seeds began to sprout, but the Picotee Blue seeds in the planter seemed to grow particularly fast. Most of the yard is covered by shade most of the day and, while the planter is also in shade most of the day, it probably gets the most light of the areas that I planted the seeds.

In under a couple of weeks, the seeds in the planter started growing up the trellises, but the seeds planted in the other areas of the yard did not grow nearly as fast. During all of the time the plants were growing, I did no watering or anything special. I just watched nature take its course.

After about a month, the Picotee Blue flower vines in the planter were really spreading, and I bought a third trellis for the planter. At four feet, the trellises I bought might not be tall enough, as I read that Morning Glory flowers grow to 8 to 10 feet or more. At the time I bought the trellises, I just wanted something for the Morning Glories to initially grow on, and I figured I would worry about anything else later.

The first blooms appeared on the Picotee Blue Morning Glories in the planter around the end of September.


As of October 6, 2009, the small Sunrise Serenade and Rare Kniolas Black Night sprouts that did not grow as well showed no sights of blooming, and the falling October leaves are beginning to cover them. I guess I will have to wait until next year to see what happens with them

The blooming Picotee Blue Morning Glories in the planter, on the other hand, have given me plenty to observe; the first thing being that the flower bloom does not look like the flower on the front of the seed packet. I’m not versed enough with flowers to know if the Morning Glories I have are actually Picotee Blues, but I am actually just happy that they seem to be thriving.

The next thing I noticed is that each flower seems to stay open after blooming for a different length of time. For example, I had intended to capture the Picotee Blue Morning Glory in the above time-lapse closing, but, after 4 hours of remaining open, I ended the time lapse for the afternoon. The next morning, the flower was still open. It did not close until later that afternoon. Many of the flowers that bloomed prior to me taking the photos opened and closed within a matter of hours. I don’t know if this is typical for Morning Glories, or if it is possibly because of the season.

The flowers are still blooming into October, but the vines don’t appear to be growing as fast now. From what I’ve read, come next spring, the Morning Glory flowers should really start to spread.

If you are considering planting morning glory flowers, I hope you have found the information and photos on this page helpful. If anything interesting happens, I will continue to update the page.

Also, prior to purchasing the MacBook Pro laptop, I had never operated a Mac before, so all of the information on the site is from a pc user and first time Mac user perspective.

]]> http://www.kcmaclink.com/2010/07/time-lapse-lawrence-to-legends/feed/ 0 http://www.kcmaclink.com/2010/07/my-apple-macbook-pro-laptop-original-configuration/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-apple-macbook-pro-laptop-original-configuration http://www.kcmaclink.com/2010/07/my-apple-macbook-pro-laptop-original-configuration/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:33:50 +0000 Dave http://www.kcmaclink.com/?p=20 My Apple Macbook Pro 13 inch laptop computer came with the following configuration:

Processor: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRM-2x2GB
Hard Drive: 250GB Serial ATA Drive
Optical Drive: SuperDrive 8X DL
Operating System: Mac OS X v10.5.7 Leopard

and with the following optional software preinstalled:

iWork 09
Aperture 2.0

The Netgear DG834G Wireless Modem Router

The MacBook Pro 13 Inch Laptop, running OSX Leopard, is compatible with the Netgear DG834G Wireless Modem Router, when connected wirelessly or by using Ethernet cables in conjunction with 85 MBPS Wall-Plugged Ethernet Adapters.

When I first purchased the MacBook Pro, I connected it to my home network via Ethernet cable. All of my Windows shared computers showed up in the finder immediately, and I was also able to open a Safari window to the internet instantly with no problem.

Connecting to the home network wirelessly was also just about as effortless. When I enabled the wireless feature on the DG834G, and opened System Preferences on the MacBook Pro Dock , followed by Network, the MacBook Airport automatically detected all of the wireless networks in my area. I selected my home network from the list, chose the security encryption (WPA-PSK on the router translates to WPA Personal in Airport) , entered the password, and was instantly connected. Also, all of the shared PCs on the network showed up in the finder.

It should be noted that that network share is only one way, in that the other PCs are visble on the Mac, but the Mac is not visible on the other PCs, or at least I have not discovered how to share the Mac in Windows at this point.