Morning Glory Nests.

I have a wise old friend who warned me against planting Morning Glory.
‘But it’s so pretty!’ I argued… ‘And, it grows so wonderfully fast!’ I pleaded. I was wanting to plant a vine that would grow over our fence and make our yard look like a jungle of green. As is usually the case with me, I wanted this curtain of green immediately!
‘Donni,’ he sighed, ‘You will work hard for your impatience.’

And, yes I have! I planted Morning Glory, of course, and soon had a wonderful jungle for a back yard. It is so very pretty… deep green leaves, wonderful purple trumpet flowers that seem to change color every time I look at them and enchanting new tendrils that curl and spiral. But, alas, it is like the fabled vine that grew around Sleeping Beauties castle. It grows thicker and thicker, sends down roots and starts new vines all on it’s own. It invades everywhere and covers everything. The one vine I planted has now become countless many. It has choked my roses to death, almost destroyed my passion fruit and is having a good attempt at strangling the banana trees. Every couple of months, we have to be ruthless with it as we free our other plants.

Today was Morning Glory Control Day. Morning Glory Control Day has become synonymous with Nest Making Day as we collect the morning glory clippings to make nests. So, although it’s a day of hard work for me, my children whoop enthusiastically as nest making is on of their very favorite Spring activities.

We collect a big bunch of Morning Glory vine and ‘de-leaf’ each tendril.

To form the base of the nest, we take a few strands of vine and twist them around each other.

And then, we make our nest bigger and bigger by threading pieces of vine through it… around and around, filling in holes as we see them.

It’s just like sewing, Kitty exclaimed!

Voila! Our Morning Glory nests are made.

We leave them in an airy place to dry out and play with them for many, many months. We make big ones and small ones, we add a few little robins eggs, some guinea fowl feathers, moss, wool… whatever we have on hand to make them as enchanting as possible.

Here is a link to last years Morning Glory Control Day where we rediscovered our dear printers tray.

Happy Spring,
Blessings and magic to you,
Donni

Share:

Share on facebook
Share on pinterest
Share on email

13 Responses

  1. I did the same thing many years ago in a different house… I wanted insta-pretty so I planted morning glories. Like your’s they tried to take over our entire garden. Lesson learned, and in this house I have been more patient! :-)

  2. Our neighbor has morning glory growing over onto our side of the fence between our houses. Now I can’t wait to try out this idea!

  3. I feel really lucky! The morning glories in our area can barely grow with the other wild flowers that grow just as fast. Either way their special, since you’ll only see a few in the morning. I love how you use the trimmings for nest; and they make good nest too!

    What do you do with the nests?

  4. SNAP!! We cut our ivy last month (again…), and it never occurred to me to make a nest. How beautiful your little princess looks with her creation, it’s amazing. I don’t know why this just crossed my mind, but I doubt she would look anywhere near as enchanting with a games console in her hands.
    Note to self- next time we have the Misters’ kids, switch off power supply and do something that matters!

  5. I have created a monster in my back yard, by planting a muskadine grape. It have vined all over the clothes line from East to West and is now attempting to cover the North fence. lol It has also started up the neighbor’s fence on the East. I need to cut it back severly but need to wait until the grapes are ripe. I did not get any of them last year because of the birds and the squirrels. lol All I wanted was to be able to make a few jars of jelly and I still don’t have the grapes. lol When I finally get around to cutting all the vines back, I will be able to make several very nice sized baskets. I am wishing that I were young again so I could feel up to doing all of that work (I am 73). I love your blog and still use some of your ideas and share others. I volunteer at a local nature center and do nature crafts and programs there, with the young naturalists. lol Keep up your good works.

    1. That’s so funny, Romona… I’m so glad it’s a monster you can eat one day. We have a wonderful passion fruit vine. It didn’t produce a single passion fruit for 3 years… now, she gives us hundreds of gifts each year. Hoping your Muskadine grape is the same <3
      xo Donni

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Table of Contents

On Key

Related Posts

Members-only practise2

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis

Members-only practise

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis

DIY Kitchen Cleaner Recipe

Eco-living On A Budget

We all know that many of the hazardous chemicals in conventional cleaning products are often carcinogens, neurotoxins, mutagens, teratogens, or endocrine disrupters. Of course these