My morning glories are in their waning days - and the lower part of the
vines are like Mark Anderson's. However, they are flowering like crazy - so
I really don't care. They only have 3-4 weeks left at best in my climate.,
and possibly less than 2, if mother nature decides that she wants an early
frost this year. So at this point, I'm thrilled to have 30 or 40 open
flowers every morning. Mine are also in a large 18"square pot. They have
never been fed, but watered religiously - at least once a day during the
hottest weather and now about every other day. (our nights are already in
the low 40's). My pots are a mixture of potting soil, potting compost, and I
spread a large bag of composted steer manure over the 7 large pots I have on
my patio every spring. There might be some leftover osmocote in the potting
soil, which is why I didn't add any fertilizer this year. The morning glory
shares a pot with prize winning nasturtiums of every color, petunias and the
odd marigold, lobelia and chinese forget-me-not. The location gets less
than 1/2 day of sun, but the top of the morning glory vines have trailed
themselves up over an arborvitae hedge, so that portion of the vines gets
full sun. Overall, I've been delighted with their performance. I bought the
heavenly blue already started in early June, and it never got set back. I've
had bad luck with growing forget me nots from seed. Even the Early Call
variety hardly started to bloom until mid august. This early-started
store-bought variety started to bloom in early July and has never quit
since. If I do this again next year, I will experiment with adding more
fertilizer - but I love the nasturtiums and they prefer leaner soil.