I planted "Scarlet O'Hara" and "Grandpa Ott" 3 years ago and every year since, I get volunteers popping up in all of my pots and in the astroturf the entire length of my balcony. The volunteers that I allowed to remain started blooming a couple weeks ago. I don't know if they necessarily have to be crowded to bloom although if they are, that would certainly stress them and probably trigger them to bloom as a response. It seems that direct sowing (or perhaps winter sowing or letting them self-sow rather than starting indoors), results in them growing faster, with thick, healthy vines.

I guess it's a matter of patience! LOL Once they start growing and blooming, they keep on going until frost.

They'll grow in astroturf?!? Crazy! Mine are going gangbusters, just not blooming. They're almost to the top deck - tomorrow maybe. They grow so amazingly fast! Hoping for blooms sometime soon. So is my daughter - her favorite color is blue, and these are the Clark's Heavenly Blues. She keeps asking about the blue flowers.

Mine are and always do grow like crazy and bloom the same way.Every year we cut them all the way down and they come back in bloomin' glory every year.Of course i'm in S.Calif,so we don't really have any real cold weather to speak of.Mine also have geraniums inter twined with them.
Kathi

I'm in north Georgia, and mine just began blooming last week. Don't know if it's size, age, or weather that controls bloom time. I transplanted these into a pot on the deck from volunteer seedlings.

I've heard, if you mist them, it encourages blooms.... I tried it on my passies, they bloomed, not sure if it was the misting, thou...

Morning glories seem to bloom best when they have a lot of a lot of water and a little root crowding. I also think that they do better if they are allowed to "naturalize" to your area.

I started with Heavenly Blue seedlings from a nieghbor's yard and have let them self sow for the past 4 years. I pot up the seedlings as they come up and each year they are a bit stronger with more blooms. If its cold when I plant them, I pile rocks at their feet to keep the roots warm (you can do this with all the tropical vines, and its makes a huge difference in the size of your vines). My problem is they have started changing colors each year! Red, blue, you name it..so much for a garden plan!

Here are my MGs this morning. It has been sortof bright but hazy this morning and I had to flash the scene, but I was happy to see my hummers actually nectaring out of the open flowers earlier this morning (normally I only saw them use them after they closed in the evening):

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All these millions of MG vines are the volunteers that sprouted and I trained them to go around a home-made trellis support and the shepherd's hook with my hummingbird feeder. There are also scarlet runner beans and hyacinth beans running up the trellis. The SRBs were blooming last month and a little this month and I'm still waiting for the HBs to bloom. Should be soon!

I have no idea what the names of these are,all i know is that they are morning glories.The picture that shows the castor bean plant as well is the backside of the morning glories on the canyon side.

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This next one is the backside (canyon side) of it.

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These were taken at 5:30 pm,so not a lot of blooms open.

Kathi