How to Produce Morning Glory Seeds

Overview

Morning glories are lush, fast growing vines which typically produce flowers that bloom once, opening early in the morning only to fade and die by afternoon. But the beauty is that these prolific bloomers produce fresh pink, blue, mauve, purple or white blooms daily throughout August and September. Morning glories produce and drop seeds in the fall, which will grow for you the following spring.--you'll never need to replant them in the same location. But if you have some favorites that you'd like to propagate elsewhere, they're quite easy to grow from the seeds of your own plants. To produce morning glory seeds, all you really have to do is to grow a healthy plant to maturity, then harvest the seeds.

Step 1

Watch your morning glory vine daily for signs of seedpod growth in the fall, when flower production begins to slow. They'll begin as clusters of several what appear to be pendulous, bulbous looking little growths that resemble a hanging lantern. Each bloom will have left its seeds behind following its demise, so they're there. It's your job to find them. They'll become more apparent to you as the seedpods grow and mature.

Step 2

Continue caring for the plant as normal, inspecting every inch of it carefully for seedpod growth daily. The little pods will begin to resemble the buds of normal flowers, complete with slender green sepals. They're tiny and very deceiving, and you'll discover more of them every day, even in spots you thought you had scrutinized closely the day before.

Step 3

Pick the seedpods when they have turned completely brown and very dry. They will resemble plump little onions hanging there, and the green sepals will have dried, turned brown and curled upward away from the pod.

Step 4

Hold a seedpod over a small bowl. Crumble it between your fingers and the seeds will drop into the bowl. Immature seeds will not drop from the pod. The wedge-shaped seeds will be creamy, brown, or off-black in color, and about 1/8 to ¼ inch long. Depending upon variety and growing conditions, you can expect to obtain from one to eight seeds from each pod with four or five being average.

Step 5

Spread the seeds in a single layer on a plate or cookie sheet and set them in a warm spot at room temperature out of direct light to dry for a week. If weather conditions are damp, dry the seeds for another week. Package them in paper envelopes and store in a cool, dark location until you're ready to plant them.